Inco finds partner for exploration — Dowa Mining to fund work in Indonesia, Turkey

Tight times in the nickel industry have forced Inco (N-T) to concentrate on exploration at its advanced projects, but a joint-venture agreement with Tokyo-based Dowa Mining will permit less advanced projects in Turkey and Indonesia to go ahead under Inco management.

Dowa will fund a 2-year program on Inco’s Murgul base metal property in northeastern Turkey. The property surrounds a currently producing copper mine held by Black Sea Copper Works, a Turkish company. Lenses of volcanic-hosted massive sulphide mineralization dip northeastward on to the Inco ground, and earlier drilling picked up a zone of stringer mineralization grading 8.4 grams gold and 11.8 grams silver per tonne over a 23.6-metre core length.

Under the agreement, Dowa can earn a 49% interest in Murgul. It can also earn a 49% interest in Inco subsidiary Maluku Holdings, which is in a joint venture with Indonesian state mining enterprise Aneka Tambang. Inco holds an 85% interest in a 1,000-sq.-km exploration concession on the islands of Haruku, Ambon, Nusa Laut and Saparua, and has discovered a large number of copper, lead-zinc and precious metal showings there. The islands lie about 500 km west of New Guinea.

The most advanced work on the project has been done on Haruku Island, where a zone of massive-sulphide mineralization grading an average 6.9% zinc, 4.7% lead, 1.5% copper and 110 grams silver per tonne has been outlined.

Vancouver-listed Indo Metals (IOM-V) had held an option on the property, but the depressed junior market forced it to drop the option before earning in.