Although weak gold markets make it unlikely the Bakyrchik mine will resume production any time soon,
In order to boost its interest in Bakyrchik to 100%, IG agreed to pay GTL Resources US$500,000 and release it from all obligations related to a loan for previous expenditures at the mine site. GTL also is turning over its 85% interest in exploration lands surrounding Bakyrchik, as well as other exploration interests in the country.
IG still owes the Kazakstani government a final US$30-million payment for the purchase of its previous 80% interest in Bakrychik. However, the company is negotiating to restructure the terms of the 1997 agreement in order to gain greater flexibility in arranging a new joint venture.
Bakyrchik, a former producer, hosts a large, metallurgically complex gold resource. Recent feasibility work has been aimed at lowering production costs and improving metallurgical recoveries.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, IG reported a high-grade silver-copper discovery at the Sekatak project in northeastern Kalimantan.
One of two holes that tested ground adjacent to poorly exposed zones of quartz feldspar porphyry returned 74 metres of 20.5 grams silver and 0.15 gram gold per tonne, 0.71% copper, 0.36% lead and 0.18% zinc. The other returned 9.1 metres of 640.4 grams silver, 0.28 gram gold, 0.61% copper, 0.79% lead and 0.75% zinc.
This drilling was focused on broad zones of low-grade, stratabound base metal mineralization hosted in clastic sedimentary horizons. The mineralization was traced over a strike length of more than 3 km.
The original exploration effort at Sekatak was aimed at defining outcropping silver-lead-zinc carbonate, replacement-style mineralization. However, subsequent work and results from recent drilling have convinced the company that this style of mineralization was overprinted by a zoned, structurally controlled, silver-copper-gold system distal to a porphyritic intrusive body.
IG is directing its efforts to defining the size and outline of the intrusive body that is postulated as the driving mechanism for the mineralization defined to date.
An airborne magnetometer-spectrometer survey has been contracted for the target areas. Trenching and sampling are also under way.
IG operates the S&K mine in Myanmar, which produces cathode copper by means of solvent-extraction electrowinning and holds a portfolio of exploration projects in Southeast Asia.
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