Maple Minerals joins UGL in Mongolia

Maple Minerals (MPM-V) has agreed to take up to a 60% stake in some 3,700 sq. km worth of uranium exploration properties held by UGL Enterprises (UGS-V) in Mongolia.

The company can take an initial 50% interest in the land package by spending US$1.5 million over three years, with US$350,000 of that committed during the first year. Thereafter, Maple can boost its stake by 10% in return for another US$2 million over a subsequent three years.

Maple has also agreed to issue UGL 50,000 shares once regulators approve the deal.

The agreement covers 21 early-to-medium-stage exploration licences (either granted or applied for), containing various uranium occurrences, radiometric anomalies and favourable geological settings for uranium. All of the targets were originally outlined by Russian and Monolian exploration programs conducted between 1966 and 1990.

UGL’s Mongolian portfolio also includes an option to earn 100% of two exploration licences on the Nergui project. If UGL exercise its option, Maple would need to fork over another batch of shares worth $75,000.

In early April, UGL recently requested a halt in the trading of its shares to correct mistakes in reported uranium grades at Nergui. The company said the errors related to the transcribing of grade units from the original Russian documents into Mongolian.

The recent agreement also calls for the two companies to jointly explore and acquire other uranium targets in Mongolia. The deal is subject to due diligence by Maple.

Back in Canada, Maple is partnering with East West Resource (EWR-V) to take a 50% stake (25% each) in Pele Mountain Resources‘ (GEM-V) Ardeen gold project on the Shebandowan greenstone belt, 110 km west of Thunder Bay, Ont.

To do so, the pair must spend an aggregate of $2.5 million on the property by the end of 2008. Maple is also required to make $140,000 worth of option payments, and East West must issue 700,000 shares by Jan. 31, 2008.

The companies can each take an additional 5% by spending a combined $1.5 million, and producing a feasibility study by the end of 2012.

The 40-sq.-km property is home to the Ardeen mine, which was northern Ontario’s first gold mine; it produced 30,000 oz. gold and 175,000 oz. silver in the early 1930s.

Earlier this year, Freewest Resources (FWR-V) discovered volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralization on its Sungold property, which extends close to the southern boundary of Ardeen (Apr. 25-May 1/05).

Trenching there returned grades of 10-32.8% zinc, with copper grades running from 0.25% to 12.5%. One sample of semi-massive sulphides in rhyolite returned grades of 7.3% zinc and 3.1% copper.

Freewest’s discovery lies within the same belt of Archean age bimodal volcanic rocks that cover much of the Ardeen property.

Maple and East West plan an airborne time-domain electromagnetic survey over the entire property to identify massive sulphide targets. An induced polarization survey over selected areas will target shear-hosted gold and VMS-associated alteration systems.