Maple Minerals joins UGL in Mongolian uranium hunt

Maple Minerals (MPM-V) will acquire up to a 60% stake in a 3,700-sq.-km land package in Mongolia consisting of uranium exploration properties. The vendor is UGL Enterprises (UGS-V).

In return for the initial half-interest, Maple must spend US$1.5 million over three years, with US$350,000 committed during the first year. Thereafter, the company can boost its stake by 10% in return for another US$2 million spent over the subsequent three years.

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

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

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

In early April, UGL 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 jointly to 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 total half-interest (25% each) in Pele Mountain Resources‘ (gem-v) Ardeen gold project in 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 acquire 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 (T.N.M., April 25-May 1/05).

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

Freewest’s discovery is in 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 volcanogenic-massive-sulphide-associated alteration systems.