Blina Minerals ongoing due diligence work at the Maintirano copper project in western Madagascar continues to return encouraging results with one sample registering 37.5% copper and 33ppm silver.
The company collected and assayed 59 samples from 15 remote copper occurrences with eight samples returning more than 5% copper during its second due diligence campaign.
Previous sampling by Blina returned grades up to of 11% copper.
The high grade samples appear to coincide with steeply dipping veins that contain secondary copper carbonates, chalcocite and cuprite.
Notably, samples with more than 15% copper were collected from three different locations over 10km apart, which supports the theory of a large-scale system.
Management said that the recent observations and results has provided further encouragement that mineralisation at Maintirano is similar to that at the Keweenaw Copper Province in Michigan, where 11 billion pounds of refined copper was produced from ores grading between 1.5% and 3% copper over a 100 year period.
Blina is now planning to carry out airborne surveys to find additional vein systems as no modern exploration methods have been used at Maintirano to date.
Maintirano is known to contain over 30 copper occurrences, some of which are mined on an artisanal-scale.
The company has also extended the due diligence period to 22 February, for the acquisition of private Australian company Madacu Resources, who is earning a 95% stake in Maintirano.
Blina is acquiring Madacu for an initial payment of 180 million shares and $200,000 as reimbursement for Madacu’s incurred field expenses.
The company will issue another 120m shares to Madacu’s owners if it identifies at least four drill targets and a further 200m shares if it delineates a minimum indicated resource of 10 million tonnes grading more than 1.5% copper.
Madacu has an agreement to earn an initial 70% interest in Maintirano from local company Mada Hanra by spending USD$2m on exploration over two years along with separate vendor payments of USD$128,250 and an option and exercise fee of USD$76,000.
It can acquire a further 20% in the project after 24 months by paying USD$475,000 and a further USD$712,500 on conversion of selected Exploration Licences into Exploitation Licences.
A final 5% interest may be acquired at Madacu’s option for a final payment of USD$7.125m.
By Matt Birney
