Inter-Citic firms up Chinese deals

Formal agreements have been signed on two property deals in mainland China by Inter-Citic Mineral Technologies (ICI-V), one in Qinghai province and the other in Inner Mongolia.

Inter-Citic, which reached the agreements last July, can earn an 83% interest in the Dachang gold project from the Qinghai Geological Survey Institute, the provincial survey in Qinghai, by spending $5.2 million over four years and paying the provincial survey $1.6 million once a mining licence has been issued. An option clause allows Inter-Citic to increase its interest to 90%, at which point the provincial survey reverts to a carried interest.

The company is obliged to spend $2.4 million over three years to earn an 85% interest in the Zalantun gold project in Inner Mongolia from the Beijing Institute of Geology for Mineral Resources, the national geological survey. The agreement carries an option clause similar to the Dachang deal.

Dachang consists of four exploration licences, covering 219 sq. km, in Qinghai, the province immediately northeast of Tibet. Historical placer mining in rivers in the area has gone on for about 200 years. An external consultant to Inter-Citic estimated an inferred resource on the property at 5.7 million tonnes grading 7 grams gold per tonne, based on a review of the Qinghai survey’s drill data.

The Zalantun land package, in northeastern Inner Mongolia about 400 km northwest of Harbin, consists of three properties all at early exploration stages. The 73-sq.-km Pentouling property is underlain by volcanic rocks and both volcanic ring structures and epithermal-porphyry-style alteration zones have been mapped in the area. Huangcaogou, a 38-sq.-km property, and Bashenge, 14 sq. km, have similar geology to Pentouling.