High-grade gold continues at Boka

Vancouver — Drilling has enabled Southwestern Resources (SWG-T) to confirm the stratiform nature and continuity of high-grade gold mineralization at the Boka 1 project in China’s Yunnan province.

Highlights include two high-grade intercepts that extend the Boka 1 South zone southward by 600 metres: 30.7 grams gold per tonne over 13.65 metres in hole 53, and 41.5 grams gold over 7.2 metres in hole 57.

Highlights from drilling on the Boka 1 North zone are as follows:

— Hole 50 — 45.5 metres grading 2.2 grams gold from a depth of 212.7 metres;

— Hole 54 — 43.3 metres of 2.9 grams gold from a depth of 164.3 metres, including 7.3 metres of 9.2 grams gold;

— Hole 55 — 51.9 metres of 4.1 grams gold from a depth of 146.3 metres, including 13.3 metres of 10 grams gold;

— Hole 56 — 47.12 metres grading 5.3 grams gold from a depth of 187.2 metres, including 11.75 metres grading 15.5 grams gold.

Trenching, tunneling and drilling have extended the Boka 1 gold zone 1,800 metres along strike. The zone is still open to the north, south and down-dip. Mineralization continues downdip for 300 metres at Boka 1 North and 500 metres at Boka 1 South.

Gold mineralization at Boka is associated with quartz-carbonate stockwork, replacement quartz veins, massive sulphides, and massive carbonate replacement.

Southwestern plans to drill several holes to test the 1,500-metre-long conductive zone found from a recent electromagnetic survey over the Boka 1 gold zone. The survey indicates a conductive graphite shear zone lying directly above the gold mineralization.

Southwestern Resources is contemplating a combined open-pit/ underground mine at Boka.

The company can earn a 90% interest in the project from the China Yunnan Province Nuclear Industry Team 209 by spending US$4 million over four years and paying US$1.7 million in cash and shares in the fourth year.

“The gold mineralization at Boka was discovered in 1998 by the Chinese geological exploration team,” says Southwestern Resources President John Patterson. “The partners were producing from the site by late 2000 through the driving of numerous primitive-looking tunnels into the high-grade zones. The company has since sealed off all those underground workings with cement, owing to concerns about their stability, and to prevent further high grading by the locals.”

He adds that a resource estimate will not be available until the summer.

Meanwhile in southern Peru, Southwestern is beginning a prefeasibility study of its zinc-silver-lead properties known collectively as Accha-Yanque.

The properties lie along a 30-km, northeasterly stretch, roughly 120 km south of Cuzco on the western margin of the Apurimac batholith.

Drilling has been carried out on the Accha and Yanque zones of mineralization, and several zones have been trenched.

The prefeasibility is designed to make the resource at Accha compliant with National Instrument 43-101. Previously, Australian-based Pasminco did a scoping study in accordance with Australia’s JORC code.

Accha hosts high-grade Mississippi Valley-type deposits, and these contain an estimated 9 million tonnes grading 9% zinc. The zone occurs over a 550-metre strike length and is open to the west.

Infill drilling is planned for Yanque and three other prospects. Also, surface sampling and trenching will try to define the extent of a recently discovered copper-gold prospect in the Tintaya-Bambas copper-gold belt of southern Peru.

The new Milenio porphyry copper-gold mineralization is exposed in an outcrop-strewn area measuring 1,500 by 1,000 metres. Here, oxide copper occurs in a fine network of quartz-limonite stockwork associated with an altered syenite porphyry. Local disseminated chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite are present.