TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 5, 2011) - Vaaldiam Mining Inc. ('Vaaldiam' or 'the Company') (TSX:VAA) is pleased to report that Flemish Gold Corp. ('Flemish') has closed a private placement of $10 million through BMO Capital Markets on May 3, 2011.
Vaaldiam owns 10,625,000 common shares of Flemish. The private placement consisted of 10 million units priced at C$1.00. Each unit included one common share and one warrant to buy one share at $1.20 for 24 months. Flemish expects to go public in 2011 and now has 57.3 million common shares issued.
Robert Jackson, Vaaldiam's CEO, said "Flemish will use this money to aggressively drill for multi- million ounce gold deposits in parts of Africa with good geological pedigree. Drilling has already produced some interesting results. Flemish is a key part of our growth strategy, along with our promising Braúna kimberlite diamond property in Bahia, Brazil. Braúna's high quality diamond resource has a positive scoping study and shows signs of being a company-maker. This private placement values our Flemish shares at significantly more than the
.32 per share that we paid. It is a solid endorsement by third-parties of our investment in Flemish, which currently receives zero recognition in Vaaldiam's share price. One common share of Vaaldiam now owns 0.15 of a common share of Flemish, giving Vaaldiam significant upside".
Flemish has three major exploration properties in Burundi covering approximately 2,600 km2 and has applied for a fourth licence of 1,400 km2. It also has exploration properties of over 1,000 km2 in neighbouring Rwanda as well as 2,400 km2 in Uganda, where a soil geochemistry program is being undertaken over airborne magnetic anomalies.
The financing will allow Flemish to drill numerous promising gold targets at the 863 km2 Muhwazi property in Burundi, which it acquired in late March 2010. Flemish expects to complete another 17,000 m of drilling there by year-end. The property is in north-eastern Burundi and hosts over 40 known artisanal and colonial-era gold mining sites. The campaign will drill along the multi- kilometric strikes of the targets using one reverse circulation (RC) drill and two diamond drills.
Flemish has drilled at three locations at Muhwazi: Masaka 1, Nyungu Ridge and Gatovu. The first RC hole at Masaka 1 intersected 63 m grading 1.7 g/t Au. Previous drilling had indicated a non-43- 101 compliant resource of 738,360 t @ 2.2 g/t Au (Geostat 2001). The zone is open in all directions.
The Nyungu Ridge, located across the valley from Masaka 1, has extensive active artisanal mining sites that extend over 2.5 km along the ridge. Flemish has completed 12 RC holes under the workings to about 100 m depth. Most holes intersected pervasive white and grey quartz with numerous zones of disseminated sulphides, which is encouraging geology. The assay results are pending and Flemish can deepen these holes with diamond drilling if needed.
Flemish also completed two diamond drill holes on the Gatovu target. Elsewhere, mapping in the north-west corner of the Muhwazi licence has identified an active artisanal gold mining site which extends over a strike length of at least 3 km.
Flemish has about 2,000 drill samples either in assay or en-route for assaying. In addition, it has collected some 3,000 termite mound samples and over 1,000 stream sediments samples, many of which yielded visible gold when panned. Flemish will be installing a sample preparation facility at its base of operations. This facility will be managed by an ISO-certified company that provides international assay laboratory services and is expected to significantly expedite the assay turn-around time.
The technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed by Martin Taylor P.Geo., who is a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101. RC samples were analysed by Leachwell™ cyanide leach at ALS-Chemex in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and included 10% quality control samples.
For additional information regarding Vaaldiam please visit www.vaaldiam.com, or contact Robert Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer at rjackson@vaaldiam.com. For further information about Flemish contact Jean-Charles Potvin at jcpotvin@flemishgold.com.
Certain of the information contained in this news release constitutes 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of securities laws. Such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to those with respect to the prices of metals and minerals, purchase payments, royalty payments, estimated future production and estimated costs of future production involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any forecast results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the actual prices of metals and minerals, the actual results of current exploration, development and mining activities, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated, as well as those factors disclosed in the documents of the Company filed from time to time with the Ontario Securities Commission.