Overseas Platinum busy in Brazil, U.S. and Europe

An acquisition program for platinum and gold properties has been completed by Overseas Platinum Corp. Armed with $1.75 million raised from a private placement of shares with a group of European financial institutions, Overseas is preparing to begin exploration work on its large land positions.

In Brazil, the company holds rights to a 187,000-acre group of concessions covering a large section of the Tocantins Complex — a series of ultramafic intrusives with known platinum associations. According to president Francis J. L. Guardia, the intrusive is one of the largest layered bodies outside of South Africa’s famed Bushveld Complex.

Another 4,000 acres have been leased in Minnesota, covering a favorable section of the Duluth Complex. Drilling completed by previous operators for copper-nickel deposits, cut a 7-ft section grading 0.2 oz platinum group metals per ton. The platinum-palladium ratio was 1:1. Additional ground has been acquired in Italy, which protects ultramafic bodies of the Ivrea Complex.

The search for gold is also taking Overseas to foreign countries. Concessions have been, or are in the process of being, acquired in Ecuador and Guyana. The Guyanese acquistion is most advanced, hosting estimated reserves of 250,000 tons grading 0.17 oz gold in a deeply weathered saprolitic ore. Overseas plans to explore the property with the objective of defining large tonnage, open pit reserves.

Individuals behind the company, which was reorganized from Suez Petroleum last year, include Mr Guardia and vice-president James Atkinson. Messers Guardia and Atkinson, both geologists, are credited with initiating the platinum exploration boom in Canada during the past three years. Their early work of identifying platinum targets outlined numerous properties; the majority of which were vended to International Platinum Corp., a Toronto Stock Exchange-listed company. Also, Adolf Lundin, the well-known Swiss-based natural resources investor, is on the Overseas board.