Mindoro, Panoro team up in Philippines

Vancouver — With drills turning on the Lobo property and metallurgical tests planned for the nearby Archangel project in the Philippines, Mindoro Resources (MIO-V) has dealt a portion of its Surigao land holdings to fellow junior Panoro Minerals (PML-V).

Panoro can earn a 40% interest in six properties by spending $2 million over four years. Ultimately, Mindoro will hold a 35% interest, with a Philippine partner retaining 25%.

Situated in northern Mindanao, the land package covers the Agata and Taipan targets. Mindoro drilled the former in the late 1990s.

Eleven holes tested two target areas, all but one of which returned gold mineralization grading more than 0.5 gram gold per tonne. The Assmicor prospect is considered prospective for a shallow, bulk-minable resource, as well as a major porphyry-type gold system beneath alluvial cover to the east. The East Limestone prospect returned up to 2.21 grams gold over 8 metres in hole 10.

A US$250,000 work program comprising alteration mapping and geophysics has been recommended, to be followed by a US$760,000 drill program.

Meanwhile, on the island of Luzon, to the north, Mindoro continues to receive encouraged results from drilling on the Lobo gold property.

The latest values include 5.11 grams gold over 3.4 metres in hole 10 and 1.67 grams gold over 14 metres, including 4.67 grams gold over 2.6 metres, in hole 13.

So far the junior has sunk 13 holes covering a 172-metre strike length of the Camo structural trend. The best results have come from the SW Breccia zone, where hole 7 cut 22.34 grams gold per tonne over 13 metres. Holes 8 and 9 were drilled 172 metres south of hole 7 and intersected, respectively, 3.5 metres averaging 2.4 gram gold, 2.5 gram silver and 0.43% copper, and 4.1 metres of 2.4 grams gold, 4.84 grams silver and 0.5% copper. The weighted average grade of all drill intersections was 9.17 grams gold.

The SW Breccia zone appears to be low-sulphidation epithermal mineralization overprinted on an earlier, copper-gold high-sulphidation style. The zones occur as pods or lenses, so a considerable amount of drilling will be required to define the mineralization. Mindoro intends to launch a second phase of drilling in October.

Recently, the company added $274,800 to its coffers by exercising 1.8 million warrants priced at 15 apiece. Mindoro now has 30 million shares outstanding and was recently trading at 30.