Met tests by Boleo deemed positive

Metallurgical scoping tests on copper-cobalt mineralization from the Boleo project in Baja California, Mexico, are providing encouragement for International Curator Resources (TSE).

The company is earning a 100% interest in the property, and is currently drilling off the Saturno-Mercurio area resource on a 400-metre grid. The two adjacent areas cover 4.8 sq. km and host an estimated 60 million tonnes grading 0.8% copper and 0.07% cobalt. The resource is contained within two separate beds of near-surface, flat-lying, sediment-hosted mineralization. Lakefield Laboratories has been conducting bench-scale metallurgical tests on rejected drill core and has come up with a conceptual flowsheet. The flowsheet uses a reducing sulphuric acid leach for a weighted average extraction into solution of 84.2% for copper and 72% for cobalt on seven separate oxide samples from the Saturno-Mercurio area.

Michael McInnis, president, is pleased with the results and anticipates no difficulties in recovering the two metals from solution.

The flowsheet will use resins to tie up the copper and cobalt in solution before electrowinning. The copper and cobalt will then be plated on to cathodes.

Lakefield continues to evaluate different resins for the metal recovery circuits while Process Research Associates of Vancouver, B.C., conducts confirmatory testing.

International Curator hopes to begin a prefeasibility study this fall. Preliminary work to date points towards a truck-shovel mining operation in the Saturno area, where stripping ratios are in the 3-to-1 range. A strip mining operation will employ drag lines in the Mercurio area, where the stripping ratio is the 8-to-1 range.

It is estimated that the capital cost of a 5-million-tonne-per-year operation will be US$200 million. Cash mining and processing costs are projected at US$20 per tonne in Mercurio and US$16 per tonne in Saturno.

International Curator can acquire Boleo subject to a 3% net profits interest in the first three years, increasing to 9% between the fourth and sixth years and 18% thereafter.

The purchase agreement includes several options. If the agreement is exercised before Feb. 15, 1996, the company can buy a 20% interest for US$2.2 million and the balance for US$18 million. If it is exercised by Feb. 15, 1997, Curator can buy a 30% stake for US$3.76 million and the balance for US$22.4 million.