IMA finances Argentine exploration

Junior IMA Exploration (IMR-V) has arranged a private placement of up to 1 million units priced at 65 apiece, with proceeds earmarked for general exploration. Each unit will consist of one share and a warrant that allows the owner to buy an additional share at 90 within two years.

Barrick Gold (ABX-T), which owns a 22% stake in IMA, recently exercised warrants of the junior at $1.50, as part of a financing-option agreement, and purchased 1.1 million shares. The transaction generated $1.7 million in proceeds for IMA.

The Barrick funds will be used to explore IMA’s Valle del Cura properties in the Pascua-Veladero region of Argentina. This program, which includes drilling, is to begin in October. IMA holds a package of 10 properties in the area covering 430 sq. km. Two of these properties, Potrerillos and Rio de las Taguas, are under option to Barrick. Over the course of the next 12 months, Barrick can elect to earn a half-interest in either property by paying US$250,000 and spending US$3 million on exploration over five years.

In May, IMA completed an initial 9-hole program of reverse-circulation drilling on the Fabiana zone at the Potrerillos property. Fabiana sits about 5 km east of the Veladero joint-venture project of Barrick and Homestake Mining (hm-n).

Six of the holes tested a well-defined, 500-metre-long resistivity anomaly that extends on to Homestake’s ground to the west. IMA intersected several narrow intervals, with anomalous gold values of up to 1.4 grams gold per tonne over 1.5 metres, in porphyritic andesites. Three additional holes were drilled south of the anomaly on targets defined by surface mapping and geophysical surveying. No significant results were encountered.

In the meantime, IMA has been carrying out geochemical sampling at its Tamborapa property in northern Peru. The property is held through an 93%-owned subsidiary and covers 90 sq. km at an elevation of 1,200-2,200 metres. The sampling focused on a prospective 3-sq.-km area in the centre of the property, where 55 of 109 grab samples taken in late 1999 were found to contain gold values of between 0.1 and 15 grams, for an average of 2.2 grams.

This past summer’s work initially concentrated on a train of gold-rich massive sulphide boulders ranging up to 8 metres in diameter. The boulder field cuts a 400-metre-wide swath across the mountainside, extending to the valley floor. Twenty-two grab samples yielded gold values ranging from 0.07 to 30.12 grams, giving an average of 9.3 grams. A peak value of 64.97 grams was omitted.

The source area of these boulders was located some 700 metres up-slope from the valley floor on Cerro Tablon in an area marked by colonial-age workings. Sampling from outcrop and near-surface slabs yielded an average value of 3.59 grams for 112 samples, including a high of 57.7 grams. In addition, a soil anomaly defined by 44 samples averaging 89 parts per billion (ppb) covers an area measuring 500 by 200 metres, situated near the crest of Cerro Tablon.

Downslope from the outcrops and workings, 15 soil samples collected from a 200-by-200-metre averaged 1.2 grams. A further 1 km to the southwest, limited rock sampling in the prospective Cerro Tablon West area yielded values of up to 1.1 grams, with anomalous copper, zinc and bismuth.

The mineralization at Cerro Tablon is reported to be associated with altered limestones adjacent to an intrusive contact. The first round of exploration included the collection of 1,450 rock, soil and stream-sediment samples from a 4-sq.-km area comprising Cerro Tablon and Cerro Las Minas. The sampling has reportedly encountered unusually high geochemical results, some of which have been confirmed by check assays at a second laboratory. Further results are pending.

The program was carried out under the supervision of independent consulting geologist George Sivertz, with Piotr Lutynski of Orequest Consultants. All initial assays were done at Bondar Clegg Laboratories in Vancouver.

IMA has also picked up ground 70 km north of Veladero-Pascua in Argentina’s San Juan province. The company negotiated the acquisition of the 80-sq.-km Mogote property, which adjoins the southern boundary of the Vicuna property, held by Tenke Mining (TNK-T).

Tenke will be joined by Rio Tinto (RTP-N) when it resumes exploration this fall at Vicuna.

Rio can earn a 51% interest in the 260-sq.-km project by spending US$10 million on exploration over four years, after which time a further 9% can be acquired in exchange for US$5 million in additional expenditures. Tenke will remain operator of the project until April 30, 2001; Rio can then elect to assume operatorship.

In the previous year, Tenke carried out extensive geochemical sampling, mapping, trenching and ground geophysical surveys. Several of the targets outlined will be drilled in the fall.

Tenke intends to sell, on a private-placement basis, up to 500,000 units priced at 80 each for proceeds of $400,000. Each unit will consist of one share and half a share purchase warrant. A whole warrant will be exercisable at 80 in the first year and at 95 in the second.