INTERNATIONAL EXPLORATION SUCCESSES

The increased flow of venture capital into the mineral sector and burgeoning balance sheets for producers of all mineral commodities and metals have provided an unprecedented level of funding for exploration. This has resulted in exploration geologists stepping out of their comfort zone, both in terms of drilling higher risk targets that they would not have dared to test in the earlier part of this decade, and to venturing into countries once regarded as off limits. The increased intensity of drilling, and the greater risk taking, has generated numerous exciting exploration successes in 2008. Presentations in this session will showcase some of the exploration projects, teams, and approaches that generated exciting drill results last year. They will also demonstrate that the exploration sector abroad is alive and well.