Source Press: Vangold Resources Launches Drill Program at Uganda Nickel Mine
posted on
May 22, 2008 07:15AM
Internationally diversified resource company.
After 14 years, the wait was worth it, says Vangold Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: VAN) (PINKSHEETS: VNGRF) President Dal Brynelsen, whose Uganda nickel mine encompasses a 7km strong coincident gravity and magnetic anomaly located within an extension of the 350km long Kibaran orogenic belt in Central Africa.
Brynelsen explained that in 1994, the company had drilled for signs of nickel ore at Kafunjo to depths of 350m. "We came up empty handed," Brynelsen explained, citing a drill rig with limited depth capacity having been used at the time. But with technological advances over the last decade and a half, the anomaly has been identified at depths of 650 to 800 meters and just over the border in Tanzania, along the same ore body is one of the largest nickel discoveries ever.
The anomaly, known as the Kibaran Fold Belt, in Tanzania is where Barrick Gold Corp. and Xstrata PLC, the world's fourth largest nickel mining company, are developing on a 50/50 basis what Greg Wilkins, Barrick President, called a "world class nickel sulphide deposit with compelling combination of size with high grades."
A report issued in February 2007 by Xstrata Nickel, the operator of the Central African nickel mine, gave an indicated reserve which at today's nickel price of $11.70 per pound would be valued at $5.3 billion and whose inferred reserve could up that production value by over $18 billion more -- making Xstrata's nickel mine one of the largest in the world.
Geological information on the Kibaran Fold Belt has given Brynelsen's Vangold Resources a more in-depth grasp of what to expect on the Company's Uganda property as well. Enough that the Canadian junior mining company has returned once more to the African region only this time armed with both advanced technological information and drilling equipment capable of reaching what Brynelsen hopes is a nickel find as good as Xstrata Nickel's. Time will tell, but in looking back 14-years when Vangold first began exploring for nickel the price was only around $3.00 a pound. Now inflation and global demand have pushed nickel prices to as high as $20 per pound last March. Still, with Nickel trading in the $12 per pound range Vangold looks to develop a property that a larger nickel mining operator would joint venture and complete its development in the years to come.
"All of the years of work are now converging," Brynelsen said.
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SOURCE: Source Press
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