Int’l Platinum shares nosedive on TSE findings

The shares of International Platinum Corp. (IPC) plunged 87 cents from its pre-halt high of $1.20 following release of the Toronto Stock Exchange’s findings from an investigation into the company’s Arizona property.

The TSE’s verification process, conducted by Kilborn Inc., found that there were “no significant precious metal values (i.e., not greater than an average of 0.02 grams per tonne) from the samples taken.”

Those results come from the labs chosen by Kilborn on a total of 18 samples taken by a Kilborn representative on IPC’s Black Rock project. All 18 samples were tested using each Kilborn lab’s “preferred method for assaying for gold and platinum metals.”

The labs were also instructed to choose any eight of the 18 samples and test for gold using the two preferred methods that IPC’s consultants use. Sample splits were also provided to IPC’s consulting labs — Iseman Consulting of Henderson, Nev., and Rogers Research & Analysis of Salt Lake City, Utah — for verification and comparison with the Kilborn labs.

The Kilborn report did confirm that one of IPC’s “preferred assay methods” was valid for determining gold values. The IPC labs, assaying the Kilborn samples, came up with “only low levels” of precious metal values averaging 0.03 oz. per ton.

Warren Tschannen, IPC’s chief executive officer, told The Northern Miner that it was Rogers’ method that was validated by the Kilborn lab. Rogers is scheduled to meet with Kilborn officials soon.

But IPC’s main concern is over the way sampling had been done by Kilborn. “We’re right on the method,” said Tschannen. “What we need now is some proper sampling.”

IPC maintains that Kilborn’s sampling had been too shallow — down to a maximum of 18 inches with a manual post-hole digger, according to IPC. It considers samples from holes fewer than 24 inches deep to be “unusable and unreliable for any geochemical or assay purpose.”

It is considering having Kilborn resample and submit these new samples to the labs Kilborn chooses and to Arizona-registered labs chosen by IPC. IPC is asking that its representatives be on site if Kilborn resamples. In contrast to Kilborn’s results, the earlier-published values from IPC’s regional sampling program ranged from 0.159 to 0.229 oz. gold per ton, 0.179-0.230 oz. platinum and 0.053-0.084 oz. palladium. Iseman produced two bars from samples on the IPC property. The bars were said to contain 0.247 oz. gold, 1.086 oz. silver, 0.351 oz. platinum and 0.123 oz. palladium per ton. (Lakefield’s assay result from one of the bars, during this latest Kilborn study, “was not materially different,” said IPC.)

Prior to the TSE investigation, the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources (ADMMR) had sampled and assayed the property. The ADMMR assayist reported nil values of gold, 0.10 oz. silver and no evidence of platinum group metals (PGM).

At the time (about four weeks ago), IPC President Lee Furlong said ADMMR’s results did not surprise him. He said conventional fire assays cannot reproduce Iseman’s values because tellurides are present in the sands. The Northern Miner asked ADMMR assayist James Weatherby about the effect of tellurides on his assay results. With the IPC sample, he said, he did not adjust for tellurides because “there weren’t any present.”

He went on to say that adjusting for tellurides is not complicated. “All you do for the tellurides is add extra litharge (lead monoxide).” (Litharge is the ingredient in a fire assay that collects the precious metals. Lead is probably the most common type of litharge.)

In a report to IPC dated March 22, 1994, Rogers Research President Clair Rogers notes he has successfully extracted “free gold and complexed gold” from ores that “with normal fire assays will not show any gold.” He goes on to say that “extractions with rare earths present can be a problem. Also silica encapsulation, also the fineness of the gold can cause problems. All too often the gold will go into the slag along with the metals they are associated with. Therefore, proper processing is necessary to overcome this problem.”

Rogers has used X-ray Diffraction and X-ray Fluorescence to quantify precious metal contents in IPC samples.

IPC President Lee Furlong said “substantial laboratories in the United States and Canada apply a single fire assay procedure for ALL samples submitted, and in a probable 90% of the cases, will report within plus or minus 20% of the actual assay value of the sample.

“Our mineralization is within the other 10% of the cases,” he said, adding that tellurides, free gold intimately associated with calcium carbonate and the carbon itself “can have a masking effect” on fire assays. IPC intends to “continue working with Kilborn and its labs to resolve these technical difficulties.”

Following the TSE investigation, IPC acquired another 15 sq. miles surrounding its Black Rock property and has allocated another $1.4 million.