ASE requests new assays

The Alberta Stock Exchange (ASE) is taking several junior companies to task for reporting assay results performed either by a method other than the fire assay technique or by a laboratory not acceptable to the exchange.

Earlier this year, Kilo Gold Mines (ASE) reported positive gold values ranging from 0.1 to 0.17 oz. gold per ton from samples taken from an alluvial gold deposit southeast of Bakersfield, Calif.

The samples were subjected to an aqua regia digest at elevated temperatures. The aqua regia solution was filtered and gold content was determined by atomic absorption. (The process is sometimes described as “wet analysis.”) In keeping with its disclosure policy for precious metal analysis results, ASE officials requested a second analysis be performed by an independent, certified, Canadian lab (or other lab acceptable to the exchange) using fire assays.

Of the original 62 samples, 29 were taken at random and sent for analysis to an acceptable lab in British Columbia. Every sample returned a grade of 0.001 oz. gold per ton.

In contrast, samples analysed by two U.S. labs (Electro Claim Labs & Refining and Vortex Industries of Idaho) varied widely, depending on the technique used. Nevertheless, Vortex returned a gold grade of 0.74 oz. gold using fire assay techniques from a sample that returned 0.001 oz. gold from the acceptable B.C. lab also using fire assays.

The metallurgical uncertainty is not preventing Kilo Gold from continuing work on the property. The company has applied for an extraction permit to proceed with a bulk 40-to-100-ton sample which will be heap-leached “to verify its ore content and determine the feasibility of mining this property.” In a separate case, ASE officials requested fire assays be done on core samples taken from mineral leases being explored by Focal Resources (ASE) in Alberta. The junior previously reported commercial values of gold, silver and platinum group elements from drilling on the Bradley project (T.N.M., April 26 and May 3/93) based on work done by U.S. labs using unconventional techniques.

The recent fire assay results were for gold and silver only, from Hole 5. The 5-ft. intervals typically returned values ranging from 0.04 to 0.06 oz. gold per ton. However, one interval returned more than one ounce gold and 50.76 oz. silver while a second returned 0.53 oz. gold and no silver. More fire assays are expected shortly. Focal reports, however, that the 6-hole program “produced sufficiently consistent values to indicate a probable material deposit of about two million tons.”