FNX and Maple Minerals begin Guinea drillingAfcan, FNX and Maple Minerals begin Guinea drilling
Afcan Mining Corp (TSX:AFK)
Shares Issued 132,600,420
Last Close 4/6/2005 $0.365
Thursday April 07 2005 - News Release
Also FNX Mining Company Inc (TSX:FNX) News Release
Also Maple Minerals Corp (TSX-V:MPM) News Release
Mr. David Netherway of Afcan Mining reports
DRILLING TO START ON MT KAKOULIMA, GUINEA
Afcan Mining Corp. mobilized a geological team on March 20, 2005, to the Mt. Kakoulima project in Guinea, West Africa, in preparation for a planned 5,000-metre drill program to explore favourable Ni-Cu-PGE targets along the basal contact of the Kaloum igneous complex (KIC).
The project is held by FNX Afcan Guinee SARL, a Guinea company which is 100 per cent owned by Afcan Mining. On Feb. 4, 2004, Afcan signed an option agreement with FNX Mining Company Inc. on the Mt. Kakoulima Ni-Cu-Co-PGE exploration project in Guinea, West Africa, entitling FNX to earn a 100-per-cent interest in the project, subject to a 3-per-cent net smelter return to Afcan. To earn its interest, FNX is required to spend $2.4-million (U.S.) on exploration over a five-year period, and produce a feasibility study or expend a further $2-million (U.S.) on exploration. Maple Minerals Corp., in turn, entered into an agreement with FNX to acquire 50 per cent of FNX's interest in the project by financing the initial $2.4-million (U.S.) of exploration. To date, Maple has provided FNX with $1.4-million (U.S.) in exploration finances. Reference is made to news in Stockwatch on Feb. 10, 2004, for a description of Maple's option to earn a 50-per-cent interest in the Mt. Kakoulima project. The project area covers approximately 295.5 square kilometres and is located 30 kilometres from Conakry, the capital of Guinea. FNX is the operator of the project.
The focus will be to follow up on the disseminated sulphides intersected during the autumn, 2004, phase 2 drill program, further define the geometry of the KIC basal contact and locate possible massive Ni-Cu-PGE sulphide traps. Drilling is expected to commence on April 7, 2005, and will be conducted again by Boart-Longyear. A geophysicist from Crone Geophysics will be on the site for the duration of the drill program, to conduct downhole geophysical surveys as each borehole is completed. FNX plans, co-ordinates and supervises the exploration program.
The KIC is approximately 60 kilometres long, of which the property licence covers 30 kilometres of the contact on the north and south margins. Phases 1 and 2 of the exploration program were successful in defining and confirming the initial concept that the basal contact of the KIC dips into the centre of the intrusion with variable steepness. This is interpreted as a feature favourable for the concentration of sulphides. Other features consistent with productive Ni-Cu-PGE sulphide-bearing mafic-ultramafic intrusions are the local occurrence of disseminated sulphides hosted within basal breccias that contain evidence of wall-rock contamination of the intrusion.
Drilling in phase 3 will begin on the south side of the KIC contact (south grid) to further define in three dimensions a large, five-kilometre-wide mapped embayment-like feature. Depending on results, the second half of the phase 3 program is planned for the north side of the KIC contact (north grid) to explore favourable geometric targets along the basal contact and to follow up on disseminated sulphides intersected during the phase 2 drill campaign. North Grid diamond drill holes AF0007 to AF0012 intersected disseminated sulphide mineralization at the base of the intrusion over a 1.6-kilometre strike length. Reference is made to news in Stockwatch on Feb. 14, 2005, for assay results for the first 11 drill holes.