Int’l Platinum Corp. budgets $2.5 million on exploration

The Fox River project, one of several platinum bets within the fold of International Platinum Corp. will be the subject of another $500,000 exploration program this year by BP Selco.

The property, located near Thompson, Man., is a well-layered 100-mile-long mafic intrusion, described by the company as being only second in size to South Africa’s Bushveld Complex which is currently the largest source of platinum in the world.

Drilling on the Fox by BP last winter located four distinct horizons containing high quantities of platinum group metals within mafic layered zones of the intrusion. Among the results of last year’s program is hole 1 which returned 0.007 oz platinum/palladium over 30 ft and hole 2 with 0.008 oz over 62 ft.

This year’s program will include the completion of airborne geophysical survey coverage of the property and a drill program on three target areas.

At the end of the program, BP will have spent $1 million and thereby will have earned a 60% interest in the property.

International Platinum also holds a 14-mile strike length of the Big Trout intrusion, 350 miles north of Thunder Bay, Ont., and intends to start a $600,000 diamond drilling program next month.

Two occurrences will be targeted. The first, called the East zone, is a 6.7-ft drill intersection, possibly open in both directions, averaging 0.20 oz total platinum group metals per ton and 6.3% chromium oxide. Rhodium comprises 6.5% of the platinum group metals.

The upper 3.3-ft section grades 0.26 oz pgms per ton and 8.2% chromium oxide. The platinum/palladium ratio of the 6.7-ft section is 1:3.

The second target called the West zone is a 200-ft-thick platinum enriched zone which occurs above both a major lithological boundary in the sill and a thin pyroxenite or reef.

Analysis of a 4.6-ft core-length from this zone recently returned 0.04 oz per ton of platinum and palladium with a 3:1 platinum/ palladium ratio. A $900,000 exploration program is on the books for this spring and summ er at the company’s Muskox property in the Northwest Territories, 300 miles north of Yellowknife. The program will include an airborne geophysical survey, ground geophysics, geology prospecting and a 9,000-ft drilling program.

So far, three target zones have been identified. Drilling in the 1950s reportedly intersected massive copper-nickel sulphides in the marginal zone of the intrusion. Combined copper-nickel averages up to 11.2% over 15 ft were recorded in unpublished information.

This same section also returned 0.62 oz pgms per ton and 0.049 oz gold.

The two other targets occur near the top of the ultramafic zone in the intrusion. Initial channel samples have returned values up to 0.05 oz platinum-palladium over a 1-ft length. These zones are believed to continue for a strike length of 3.5 miles and dip shallowly at about 10 degrees under the company property.

The company plans to spend another $500,000 on 13 of its other platinum bets this year for a total platinum exploration budget of $2.5 million.

In a move of diversification, the company is also committing funds this year to oil. It has set up a subsidiary called Ipco Petroleum Corp. (US) which is in a joint venture with U.S.-based Quator Energy Corp. on a planned 10-well drilling program in southern Illinois.

A production decision is expected this year on the Hellens Eplett silver operation near Cobalt, Ont., in which the company is in joint venture with Silverside Resources.