EXPLORATION ROUNDUP — Oxford Resources starts work programs at several gold properties in West Africa

Political stability, friendly mining laws and virgin territory are the qualities that have attracted Oxford Resources to certain West African countries.

The privately owned, Quebec-based junior holds exploration permits on gold properties in Mali (260 sq. km), Burkina Faso (1,200 sq. km) and Ivory Coast (800 sq. km), and has signed deals with local property owners and respective governments to acquire an additional 1,000 sq. km by year-end.

By choosing projects only in West Africa, the company’s following a cautious course.

“We could have worked in only one country,” explains Oxford President Rejean Gosselin. “The reason we picked three was in order to stay on the safe side of doing exploration in Africa. If something turns sour in one of the countries, we still have projects in two others.”

Gosselin notes that the decision to explore in those countries is also attributable to ties that exist between West Africa and Quebec. “Those three countries are all French-speaking, and most of the officials in place, as far as geology, exploration and mining are concerned, have studied in Quebec. We have a lot of affinity with the people there.”

Oxford’s 800-sq.-km property in Ivory Coast, known as the Alangoua, contains a gold-bearing deformation zone. Described by Gosselin as a “whopper,” the zone measures 400 metres wide by 12 km long. During a visit in June, the president panned gold from each of the five creeks that flow across the zone.

“We even panned gold from ditches beside the road that parallels the deformation zone,” he recalls.

>From the 1930s to the 1950s, several gold showings were identified in the zone. Face samples from a 20-ft. well, dug in an auiferous quartz lens, returned samples of up to 325 grams gold per tonne. Although many of these showings were worked by artisanal miners during those years, the property has since attracted little interest, which Gosselin attributes to the former system of colonial rule.

“The problem with Ivory Coast is, that since the early 1900s when the colonies came in, the economy has been based mainly on agriculture, and they just let go of mining,” he says. “Indeed, they don’t seem to have any history of mining.”

Oxford expects to start drilling before the rainy season begins in May, and is currently carrying out geochemical and geological surveys over the entire zone.

In Mali, the company has secured exploration permits for the Selou, Kenieba and Dialafara-Rhama properties in the Kenieba Inlier region, as well as for the Kangaba property, about 50 km south-east of Bamako, the country’s capital.

The Selou property covers 13 km of the gold-bearing Senegal-Mali shear zone, a structure in which three gold deposits — the Medinandi, Loulo and Sadiola Hill — have been identified to date. Within the property are numerous tourmalinized sandstone beds and small gold placers. Oxford is conducting a geochemical survey to follow up on the anomalous area, and geological compilation work is ongoing.

The Kenieba property group, 15 km south of the Loulo deposit, contains numerous gold showings that have been exploited to shallow depths by local people. Many quartz stockworks, found in tourmalinized, pryritized and brecciated sandstones and felsic intrusives, occur on the property and have been partly delineated for up to 100 metres.

Stockwork samples ranging from 1 to 10 metres in width have returned between 1 and 60 grams gold with an average of 12 grams gold. Small placers, one of which is directly related to the best known gold showing, can also be found in the area.

The Dialafara-Rhama property, which lies between the Sadiola Hill and Loulo deposits, straddles numerous gold and boron anomalies that intersect the Senegal-Mali fault.

Unlike the other properties, the Kangaba has received relatively little attention. “This is an area that has been barely touched by the former surveys,” Gosselin says. “[The former government] did only regional-scale surveys and picked up gold anomalies here and there. They did the same in the Kenieba area, where they found the Loulo gold deposit. All the attention went towards the Kenieba area and the Loulo deposit, so they just let the Kangaba property sit there.”

In Burkina Faso, Oxford holds five properties, namely Tcheriba, Tioro, Kari, Bola-Niobare and Rambobo. With the exception of Rambobo, all the properties lie in greenstone belts that contain either known gold showings or gold placers — sometimes both. Rambobo, which contains gold placers, lies at the northern end of the Boromo greenstone belt, 100 km northeast of the capital city of Ouagadougou.

To the end of 1997, Oxford has budgeted $3 million for exploration. The company is currently planning a public financing to raise a further $10.5 million.