Cominco options X-Cal’s Snowbird

After outlining a reserve of about 300,000 tons grading 0.21 oz. gold per ton and defining a number of other exploration targets, X-Cal Resources (TSE) optioned its Snowbird property near Fort St. James, B.C., to a unit of Cominco (TSE). The major company can earn a 60% interest in the 15,000-acre project area by spending $3 million on exploration and making payments totalling $400,000 to X-Cal over five years. X-Cal retained the contiguous 3,000-acre Franc claim group.

The Snowbird property is accessible year-round by road from Fort St. James, and is not far from Cominco’s dormant Pinchi Lake mercury mine.

X-Cal’s work to date has largely been focused on the North and Main zone areas of the property containing the aforementioned gold reserve. These zones are still open along strike and at depth, and several nearby targets remain to be tested.

X-Cal also reports that consistent high gold values in soils (up to 6,800 parts per billion gold) form a large untested anomaly over the new Granite zone. Prospecting work on the property also turned up numerous other spot gold and copper anomalies in soils.

Cominco is expected to undertake systematic soil geochemistry and geophysics over these targets in order to complete the structural and geochemical picture of the project area.

The surrounding Omineca district hosts a number of mineral deposits, including the Mt. Milligan gold-copper deposit owned by Placer Dome.

In a separate agreement last year, Cogema Canada agreed to a 5-year option to purchase X-Cal’s gold properties in the Bralorne area of southern British Columbia.

The agreement between the two companies provides for $500,000 cash to X-Cal and minimum work commitments of about $120,000 per year. X-Cal would be carried to production, and retain a 10% net profit interest in the 28,000-acre land package.

With major companies actively working its two key Canadian project areas, X-Cal is turning its attention to exploring two Nevada gold properties recently optioned from Equinox Resources (TSE).

The company is earning 50% interests in two claim groups totalling 2,380 acres near or adjoining the promising LAC-Equinox Rosebud gold property in Pershing Cty., about 60 miles west of Winnemucca, Nev.

X-Cal must fund a minimum of $100,000 of work to the Kamma and Wild Rose claims combined over the next year.