MINING MARKETS & INVESTMENT NEWS — Platinum-palladium exploration heats up

With metal prices recovering slightly, several juniors are exploring for platinum and palladium north of the 49th Parallel.

Following a private placement, Mustang Minerals (MMIN-C) is in the midst of a 1,000-metre program of drilling and geophysics at its East Bull Lake platinum group element (PGE) property, 80 km west of Sudbury, Ont.

The program is designed to test the lateral continuity and grade of mineralization in the anorthosite layer along the southern margin of the East Bull Lake gabbro-anorthosite intrusion.

Mustang will also explore its River Valley property jointly with Johannesburg-based Impala Platinum. Impala can earn up to a 60% interest in the property, 50 km east of Sudbury, by paying $215,000 in cash over four years and spending $6 million on exploration over five years.Meanwhile, at the Ferguson Lake nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE property in the new Canadian territory of Nunavut, Starfield Resources (SRU-A) has received assay results from its 12-hole, 2,300-metre summer drilling program, designed to extend the 6.4-million-tonne resource, averaging 0.87% copper and 0.75% nickel, drilled off by Inco (N-T) in the 1950s.

The best result was a 25.9-metre intersection grading 1.35% copper and 0.5% nickel, with cobalt, platinum and palladium credits. Two other holes intersected narrower zones with grades of 0.56% to 0.97% copper and 0.51% to 0.64% nickel.

In south-central Alaska, Fort Knox Gold Resources (FNX-T) has signed an agreement with Inco to increase to 100% from 20% its share in the Nikolai platinum-palladium-nickel properties. In return, the company will relinquish to Inco its 20% share in the Klu properties in northwestern Yukon. Inco will retain a 2% net smelter return royalty on Nikolai’s commercial production and Fort Knox will be paid a 2% NSR on any commercial production from the Klu properties.

Showings at the Nikolai properties returned grades of up to 5.2% nickel and 3.3% copper, plus 15 grams platinum and 2.6 grams palladium per tonne. The Klu properties have been inactive since 1997.

Grab samples from Band-Ore Resources‘ (BAN-T) Nym Lake PGE project in northwestern Ontario returned grades of up to 3.3 grams combined platinum and palladium, 2.9 grams silver, 0.45% copper and 0.8% nickel. A 4-hole, 610-metre drill program will test coincident magnetic and induced-polarization anomalies.