February 09, 2010

Maudore Minerals Will Shortly Announce A Major Upgrade To The High Grade Resource At Its Comtois Gold Project in Quebec

by Charles Wyatt

It was the news that London listed Anglo Pacific Group had built a 14 per cent holding and accepted an offer to put John Theobald on the board that first brought the Quebec company Maudore Minerals to the attention of Minesite. The boys round at Anglo Pacific. led by Brian Wides, have a great record as investors, though the main business of the company is in royalties. John is the chief operating officer and has over thirty years of experience in exploration, development, finance, and operations, working for a number of companies ranging from Anglo American to Metorex. Ron Shorr, president of Maudore, see the move as confirmation of Anglo Pacific's ongoing involvement in his company and reckons that John's experience will be vital if, or when, development is on the horizon.

Maudore owns the Comtois gold project which consists of 300 square kilometres astride the prolific Abitibi greenstone belt. It’s situated only 15 kilometres from the town of Lebel-sur–Quevillion, not too far from Val D’or. So far three high grade gold zones have been identified in the Osborne section of the property and three in the Bell. All are open in all directions and a main road runs between the two. Add to this the fact that a power line from the James Bay power station runs only three kilometres away, that the Quebec government is very pro-mining and does not tolerate long delays over permitting, and that there are plenty of engineers, labour and equipment in the district and you have what amounts to a very attractive project. To Ron Shorr, however, what sets it apart is the grade. “You can’t beat high grade gold. I love it. If the gold price falls it simply eliminates our competitors.”

At the moment Comtois has an inferred resource of 524,000 ounces of gold, based on drilling done up to 2002. Ron points out that what with Bre-X and then the low price of gold, thanks to Gordon Brown’s untimely sales, there was not much work that could be done at the project between 2000 and 2006. The resource is based on 808,000 tonnes at 20.2 grammes per tonne gold (uncut), and falls to 249,900 ounces if cut at 30 grammes per tonne. What stands out from this is just how high grade this project is and Ron asks the rhetorical question. “What would you prefer to have: one million tonnes at 20g grammes per tonne, 20 million tonnes at one gramme per tonne for the same amount of gold?” The answer does not require much debating, but it points up the fact that with all the drilling that has taken place at Comtois in the last couple of years the resource estimate that’s due next month is going to show a big increase. Data from only 66 holes was used for calculating the original estimate, whereas now Maudore has completed around 300 holes, many of which had high grade intersections. They also go a lot deeper than the early holes which were only drilled to 200 metres or less.

Over and above that other holes to the west have shown that there is potential to increase the strike length and number of ounces by a considerable margin, according to Mr Shorr. He goes on to point out that successful drilling of high grade intercepts in no man’s land between current resource blocks indicates potential for a semi-continuous span of gold over a strike length of two kilometres. This line of thinking has been confirmed by the latest drilling results from the Osbell Midway zone, which is located between Bell and Osborne. Seven new significant gold intersections were reported at different depths, ranging from near surface to around 300 metres, and below 450 metres. Near surface ran from 45 to 125 metres in vertical depth, and here intervals of 21.7 grammes per tonne gold over 1.5 metres, 14.8 grammes per tonne over 1.5 metres and 7.9 grammes per tonne over 1.7 metres were obtained. Next stage down, and 10.5 grammes per tonne over 1.5 metres and 8.2 grammes per tonne over a similar interval were hit, very close to some very high grades of 40 grammes per tonne and above reported last year. The first high grade results obtained at depth in this Midway area included 14.5 grammes per tonne over three metres, and this included 1.5 metres at 27.7 grammes per tonne.

There are some that have suggested that the high grade ore should simply be transported to a nearby treatment plant, as there are plenty around in Quebec, in order to generate early cash flow. At the current price of US$1,070 per ounce, a tonne of ore grading 20 grammes per tonne could be valued simplistically at US$668.75 per tonne. Deduct whatever you like for mining and transport, plus a toll charge for milling, and it would still look like a profitable operation, at least in theory. Unfortunately mining is rarely that simple. Just for starters there could be problems with the flow sheet at the mill, and variations in head grade with which to contend. Anyway, Maudore is not pushed for cash as it has around C$9 million in the kitty after a fundraising towards the end last year. C$9 million can go a long way, even with four drills working, in a province like Quebec where around 47 per cent of exploration expenditure is reimbursed to the company.

Ron Shorr therefore sees himself with two alternatives. The first is to go it alone into production, bearing in mind that Anglo Pacific is primarily a royalty company and might be willing to defray the capex significantly if it was sold a royalty on Maudore production. The second is to go on racking up the resource ounces until a mid-to-major producer can resist the temptation no longer. There are not many companies which own 100 per cent of such a high grade project and if the upcoming estimate is around the 2.5 million ounce mark, which looks quite possible, Maudore will be on the radar screens of the big boys. Not that 2.5 million ounces will be the upper limit in any way. With two kilometres of strike length and good intersections down to 500 metres, there is plenty more to come.

Add to that the fact that Maudore also owns a large land package west of Comtois which is highly prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide gold deposits and it is easy to see why Anglo Pacific reckons it is onto a good thing. These land claims, it is worth noting, extend 95 kilometres west of Comtois to beyond the Sleeping Giant mine, and Quebec is noted for VMS deposits. At the moment Ron sees the VMS potential as secondary to Comtois, though a certain amount of exploration is underway.

Maudore’s website: >www.minesite.com