Pallaum focuses on South Pacific plays

Additions to management and a planned change of focus will take Pallaum Minerals (ASE) to Papua New Guinea in quest of gold.

Trading in the issue is currently halted at the company’s request while a reorganization takes place.

Planned changes involve the addition of Peter Macnab as president and controlling shareholder. Macnab, who is well-known for his involvement in the discovery of both Placer Dome’s Misima gold project and Kennecott’s giant Lihir gold project, will vend five exploration licences into the company in return for stock. He will receive 6 million shares of Pallaum in exchange for the licences, bringing the total outstanding shares to about 13.8 million. The reorganization included a name change to Indo Pacific Resources. Shareholders have approved the arrangements, and the company is awaiting regulatory approval.

Macnab picked the five Papua New Guinea exploration licences for their potential to provide rapid definition of small-to-medium-size, minable gold reserves and, possibly, a major gold deposit.

The licences were chosen based on recorded results from basic prospecting and follow-up prospecting performed by other groups in the 1970s and 1980s. Drill targets have been outlined on at least three areas, so that scout drilling can get under way in the first year of Indo Pacific’s planned exploration. Several other targets have been identified for follow-up drilling and potential drill-testing in a second-year program.

The company expects to vend an interest in the properties to a third party in return for exploration expenditures. This will enable it to pursue the acquisition of additional exploration projects in the Asia-Pacific region. Indo Pacific has about $500,000 in working capital and plans to raise an additional $1 million through a private placement at a price around the pre-halt level of 45-50 cents per unit.

The company expects to be relisted on the Alberta Stock Exchange in early February.