Tirex Resources offers 5 oz. gold for new slogan

Before Tirex Resources (TXX-V, TIRXF-O) came along, gold and silver values were largely unknown in the Mirdita mining district of Albania because the state-run exploration company in charge never assayed for silver and considered gold content a state secret.

But now Tirex is eager to get the word out that its huge land package of volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) districts in the north-central part of the country are full of precious metals too.

The Vancouver-based junior is offering an award of 5 ounces of gold to anyone who can come up with a new slogan for Mirdita that reflects its significant gold and silver values. The deadline: Dec. 15.

“We felt it is important to reposition ourselves in the market place to reflect our upside of gold and silver on top of the base metals,” Arlen Hansen, president of Kin Communications, told The Northern Miner.

The first drill results have started to trickle in from Tirex’s 344-sq-km project, 70 km north of the capital city of Tirana. The first hole, reported on Oct. 23, intersected a 13.85 metre section grading 3.5% copper and 1.3 gram per tonne gold, including 3.65 metres grading 10.6% copper and 2.9 grams gold per tonne and 1.10 metres grading 13.6% copper and 7.4 grams gold per tonne.

A second hole cut 1.1% copper across 0.75 metres, and 4 grams gold per tonne across 1.25 metres further down the hole.

And exploratory holes drilled to test the extent of mineralization in a historical drill hole reported equally significant results. The best intersection assayed 2.75% copper, 1.27% zinc, 25.7 grams silver per tonne and 1.3 grams gold per tonne across 0.45 metres.

The potential of the Mirdita project is winning some converts. Despite the financial crisis, Tirex successfully arranged a loan of 6 million Euros from EBRD in October. The bank is owned by 61 countries and two intergovernmental organizations and invests mainly in private enterprises in Eastern Europe and central Asia.

Tirex is currently trading at about 25¢ per share. Over the last 52 weeks it has traded in a range of 23.5¢-$4.17 per share.

The company has 31.3 million shares outstanding.