Crew adds olivine to Greenland portfolio

Vancouver Gearing-up to begin construction on its Nalunaq gold deposit, Crew Development (CRU-T) has picked up the Seqi olivine deposit some 90 km north of Greenland’s capital city, Nuuk.

The company has held an option over the project since 1999. Comrpised of up to 97% olivine, Seqi has the is fully exposed and has both the grade and favourable chemical properties to be potentially commercial viable. Crew aims to launch a limited drilling program and is seeking potential partners to move the project to development.

In south Greenland, construction is slated to start next month on the Nalunaq gold mine. The initial shipment of stockpile ore, containing 23,000 oz of gold, is scheduled for late fall 2003, and the mine is expected to reach a production rate of 350 tonnes per day, producing 90,000 oz of gold per year, by the first half of 2004.

Nalunaq comprises 1,080 sq. km and is a high-grade, narrow-vein, underground project. It is 40 km from the village of Nanortalik on the southern tip of Greenland, and 6 km from tidewater. Crew acquired its stake in the project in late 1999 through a merger with Mindex, a Norwegian exploration company. The remaining 33% interest is held by NunaMinerals, which is owned by the state of Greenland.

The prospect is a gold-bearing quartz vein and calc-silicate altered shear system that outcrops on the eastern and northern faces of Nalunaq Mountain. It was first discovered in 1992 by Nunaoil while following up regional stream-sediment and scree-sampling work done in the late 1980s.

The main vein zone consists of multiple quartz veins within a strongly sheared zone of calc-silicate-altered amphibolite (chlorite, epidote and carbonate). The quartz thickness ranges from 0.01 to 0.75 metre; the zone itself has a true thickness ranging from 0.15 to 1.5 metres. The individual veins pinch and swell and are locally folded or stretched out.

Gold occurs in a free state and almost exclusively in association with quartz in veins and veinlets. A high nugget effect has caused erratic grades, creating concerns about the continuity of ore zones. Surface sampling has returned some extremely high-grade values, including more than 800 grams gold per tonne across 1 metre. In addition, underground channel sampling has yielded values of up to 5,000 grams.

For the six months ended Dec. 31, 2002, Crew reported a net loss of $9.6 million ($0.07 per share), compared with a net loss of $11.8 million ($0.09 per share) in the corrsponding period of 2001. During this period, the diversified explorer used $6.5 million in investing activities, of which $6 million was invested in advancing the Nalunaq Gold project.