NR - Majescor Resources is on track in Haiti Majescor Resources is on track in Haiti
2012-03-14
The landslide election of Michel Martelly as president of Haiti last year is already bringing positive results to the impoverished Caribbean nation, Daniel Hachey, president and chief executive of Majescor Resources (MJX-V) believes.
That is welcome news for Haitians who continue to struggle in the aftermath of the devastating January 2010 earthquake and the ensuing cholera epidemic that together killed more than 250,000 people—as well as from chronic poverty—the seeds of which were sewn under the corrupt and brutal dictatorships of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.
The country—slightly smaller than the state of Maryland—has finally started to turn the corner, Hachey says. “When you look at the political history of Haiti with Papa Doc and Baby Doc and Aristide it was a difficult place to work for a long time—not uncommon in a lot of countries that have had political unrest and problems,” he says. “But with the election of Martelly a lot of things have changed and things are moving forward rapidly from a business perspective and a mining perspective...We’ve heard that there have been a lot of people asking for information about mining in the country.”
The former investment banker points to several positive signs of development including a deep-water port and industrial park that are being built at Caracol, a fishing village on the northern coast of Hispaniola, the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, and a new university that was recently completed 10-15 km from Majescor’s Somine property, where the junior explorer has two drills turning and plans to deliver its first resource estimate before the end of the year.
“Martelly is pro-business and pro-mining,” Hachey continues, adding that the government sent representatives to the recent annual convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association in Toronto.
“They realized it’s competitive and companies compete for mining investment dollars to attract both majors and juniors,” Hachey says. “It’s like anything else—it’s a competitive world and if you want people to come in and spend a lot of money in your country, the more favorable you make the environment from both a financial and a work perspective, the easier it is to attract capital.”
Majescor’s property in northeastern Haiti is made up of the Blondin and Douvray copper-gold porphyry prospects as well as its Faille-B quartz gold vein prospect and a number of geochemical and geophysical targets and surface gold-base metal showings that have yet to be drill tested. (Blondin is about 2 km northwest of Douvray and Faille is about 4 km southeast of Douvray.)
Somine lies within a prospective volcanic arc environment hosting a number of epithermal gold and porphyry copper occurrences in Haiti as well as the Pueblo Viejo gold deposit in the adjacent Dominican Republic owned by Barrick Gold (ABX-T, ABX-N) and Goldcorp (G-T, GG-N).
“There is a whole mineralized trend that runs right across Hispaniola Island, which comprises the Dominican Republic and Haiti,” Hachey says. “There are many companies working in Dominican on this trend and there are only us and Newmont Mining in Haiti. The whole belt seems to be quite richly mineralized and it stretches from one end of the island to the other.”
Majescor’s Douvray, Blondin and Faille B prospects, about 35 km southeast of the town of Cap Haitien and about 20 km southwest of the port city of Fort Liberte, have been known about since the 1970s and 1980s when the area was examined by foreign bilateral and multilateral agencies including the United Nations Development Program.
Recently the company reported assay results from the first drill hole at the Blondin prospect. On Mar. 13 Majescor reported Hole B-001, drilled about 2,000 metres to the northwest of the Douvray prospect, which returned an intercept in the oxide zone of 72.4 grams silver and 0.05% copper over 15 metres and 0.43% copper, 0.02 gram gold per tonne and 16.9 grams silver per tonne over 113 metres in the sulphide zone, including 4.44% copper and 6.2 grams silver over 1.5 metres and 0.44% copper and 1.7 grams silver over 7.5 metres.
The company reported that in addition to those results, both oxide and sulphide zones in hole B-001 host multiple anomalous tungsten assays at greater than 100 parts per million. Majescor says it will recheck the anomalous tungsten analyses for their values using a separate analytical technique. The company also notes that high tungsten is also present in the supergene oxide zone at the Douvray prospect and that assays will be re-checked there as well.
Hachey says the first significant copper intercept in the sulphide zone at Blondin, along with the discovery of a new silver-enriched oxide cap, are encouraging and complement good results recently reported at Douvray.
Highlights from drilling at the Douvray porphyry copper prospect released late last year and earlier this year include 26.7 grams silver and 0.14% copper over 10.5 metres in the supergene oxide zone and 0.50% copper, 1.47 grams silver and 0.06 gram gold over 231 metres in the underlying primary sulphide zone in hole D-001; and 255 grams silver, 0.35% copper and 0.02 gram gold over 13.5 metres in the supergene oxide zone and 0.78% copper, 0.10 gram gold and 2.82 grams silver over 295.1 metres in the underlying primary sulphide zone in hole D-002.
Hole D-004 cut 277 grams silver, 0.18% copper and 0.04 gram gold over 13.5 metres in the supergene oxide zone and 0.60% copper, 0.08 gram gold, and 0.88 gram silver over 212.80 metres in the primary sulphide zone at hole D-005.
Majescor owns about 72% of the Somine project with the remainder held by a number of individuals, the majority of whom are wealthy Haitians. Majescor has completed a base camp at the project and employs about 50 Haitians as geologists, technicians and support staff and another 50-100 Haitians as day laborers for drill moves and drill pad set-ups.
At presstime in Toronto Majescor was trading at 21¢ per share within a 52-week range of 10¢-36¢. The Montreal-based explorer has about 71.7 million shares, fully diluted.
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