Bayfield hooks BHP Billiton

Vancouver — Bayfield Ventures (BYV-V) has optioned its three mineral licences in southern Mongolia to BHP Billiton (BHP-N).

The major can earn a 51% interest in the largely unexplored projects by spending US$1.25 million by the end of 2007. A further 24% can be acquired by funding work through to the completion of a feasibility study, up to US$25 million.

BHP Billiton’s initial exploration will include its proprietary Falcon airborne gravity gradiometer system.

Bayfield’s southern Mongolian projects, acquired in early 2004, cover 3,000 sq. km in three blocks east and west of Ivanhoe Mines‘ (IVN-T) Oyu Tolgoi deposit. The projects are:

– Khanbogd-2 — 1,440 sq. km about 60 km east of Oyu Tolgoi, which has received limited exploration;

– Navtgar Uul — 1,050 sq. km about 100 km west of Oyu Tolgoi, with surface copper mineralization discovered by the Mongolian Department of Mines in the 1980s; and

– Khermen Uul — 480 sq. km about 300 km northwest of Oyu Tolgoi. Here, government studies identified gold porphyry occurrences and some placer gold deposits exploited by locals. There is also outcrop of a weathered (lateritic) mafic-ultramafic assemblage, with occurrences of serpentine-hosted asbestos.

Closer to home, Bayfield Ventures has a 24.5% interest in the Baird gold project in Ontario’s Red Lake camp. Placer Dome (PDG-T) recently earned a 51% stake in the project by spending $800,000 on exploration.