Overseas Platinum gets Ecuador gold property

Joint venture partners Overseas Platinum and Wright Engineers have acquired the Las Playas gold-platinum placer prospect in Ecuador.

The property was purchased for 100,000 shares and a commitment to spend $100,000(US) in 1988. The previous owner retains a 5% net profits interest.

Las Playas is singular as a placer deposit in many respects. The precious metals occur in black sand at the mouth of the Rio Santiago River, and often coarse gold occurs with visible platinum in panned samples taken from surface. The 6,700-ha concession is adjacent to the celebrated pre-Columbian archeological site of La Tolita, from which have been recovered priceless golden masks, some with eyes fabricated from platinum.

A program of sampling using pits and drilling will start in February.

Elsewhere in Ecuador, the Buenavista (7,880 ha) and Pindilig (7,900 ha) concessions, both in south- central Ecuador, have been granted by inemin, the state mining authority to Pacific Rim Platinum SA, the Ecuadorean subsidiary of Overseas Platinum.