Dating all the way back to the 1930’s, Pelangio Mines Inc. was a pioneer in the mining and exploration industry. On September 6, 2008, the legacy of founder Maurice Hibbard was split into two companies: Pelangio Mines was renamed PDX Resources (“PDX”) and holds Pelangio Mines’ interest in Detour Gold Corporation (“Detour”), and Pelangio Exploration (“PX”) was incorporated to hold Pelangio Mines’ exploration assets.
According to Warren Bates, Vice President, Exploration, “PDX Resources holds 19 million shares of Detour and about a half-million dollars in cash. We split off our exploration projects in Ghana and Canada into a new exploration vehicle called Pelangio Exploration, which is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol PX. Our prime exploration target is in Ghana, right next to the Obuasi Mine.”
Brendan Cahill, Counsel and Warren Bates, Vice President Exploration
President & CEO, Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief, Metals News and Terry-Lynn Conway, Assistant Corporate Secretary
Ghana and the Ashanti Gold Belt
Going for Ghana’s Gold
PX controls three early-stage gold exploration concessions totaling 290 kilometres on strike and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi Mine in Ghana, West Africa.
“Ghana has some of the largest gold deposits of its type in the world,” Bates acknowledged. “The Obuasi Mine, right next to our property – two-and-a-half kilometres away – has produced about 28 million ounces and has current reserves and resources of another 29 million ounces. It’s one of the largest vein-type deposits in the world, and we are down-strike from it.”
Declaring that Ghana is a great country for exploration, Bates explained, “It’s stable. They understand mining, and it has some of the biggest deposits in the world. I’d compare our ground package to being in Timmons in 1935: having basically the whole camp to ourselves – or being next to the Dome Mine, more or less. So, it’s an enviable land package for a junior explorer, and we intend to stay in the exploration business.” This embodies PX’s goal of acquiring unique land packages in world-class camps that most junior explorers would envy. And with Obuasi, said Bates, even most major producing companies would covet PX’s ground position.
Trenching on the Obuasi concession, Ghana
“We’ve just completed a geophysical assessment on the project that shows that the Obuasi Mine structures continue onto our ground,” Bates said, adding that the company has approximately 17 MMI gold geochemical targets to test. “Our initial drilling this year shows that MMI surveying is seeing through cover and identifying gold on the project. We are seeing the gold associated with structures from the geophysics. The VTEM aerial survey we completed covered about one-fifth of the project, and we will be doing more airborne surveying in the coming year. We also have found at least six new gold showings since initiation of the aerial survey, and we’ll be drilling those in the next year. We plan to start drilling again in February of 2009.”
The Opportunity of a Challenge
Appointed Vice President, Exploration of Pelangio Mines in June of 2007, and continuing in that role with PDX and PX, Warren Bates has more than 22 years of experience in the mining and exploration industry. Armed with a degree from the University of Manitoba in both chemistry and geology, he began his exploration career in the Flin Flon area of Manitoba in 1985. Since then, he has amassed experience in a wide variety of gold terrains, from Northern Ontario through to Nevada and every country in South America, except for Brazil. “I’ve worked in exploration, reserve development and production,” he noted. Bates is currently responsible for all of PX's exploration activities in Canada and Ghana, including new project generation, and provides a geologist’s perspective on PDX’s investment in Detour.
PX is always seeking new projects, said Bates, noting that the current downturn in the markets is not necessarily a bad thing. “From PX’s point of view, the downturn is an opportunity,” he stated.
PX’s Canadian properties include a 100% interest in the Birch Lake property, northwest of Red Lake, Ontario, at which drilling by Trade Winds Ventures in 2004/2005 intercepted gold grades as high as 115.89 g/t gold over 2.90 metres and 229.96 g/t gold over 2.45 metres.
Additionally, PX holds property in the Seeley Lake area, near Hemlo, and an option to earn a 100% interest in 19 contiguous unpatented mining claims within 760 acres in the adjacent Page Lake area, approximately 14 kilometres northeast of Marathon, Ontario. The Page Lake property hosts promising gold showings, as well as several polymetallic base metal occurrences with zinc grades from grab samples ranging from 4% to 11% and several molybdenum occurrences.
Pelangio also has an option to acquire a 100% interest in the poly-metallic Manitouwadge property (comprising the Moshkinabi and Fairies Lake properties) located in the Thunder Bay Mining Division, Ontario, near the former Geco Mine.
PX’s Canadian Properties
PDX Resources
“On the PDX side, we hold 19 million shares of Detour Gold Corporation,” said Bates, noting that Detour is working towards feasibility on its Detour Lake property northwest of Cochrane, Ontario, which holds a resource of 13.2 million ounces of gold (10.8 million ounces measured and indicated and 2.4 million ounces inferred). “We’ve seen the stock prices fall, but there’s still a lot of gold in the ground at Detour Lake, and we believe that value will be realized from that, no matter what. So we’re sticking with that one. It’s a world-class deposit: an over 10 million ounce resources in a geopolitically stable, mining friendly jurisdiction. Right now, it’s very hard to beat that, and we think there’s going to be opportunity coming out of the markets as they stand.”
Standing the Test of Time
Bates notes that CEO Ingrid Hibbard is the daughter of well-known Timmins prospector Maurice Hibbard, who passed away in 1995. “It’s a thrill to be working with her. She was born doing geophysical surveys out of the back of her dad’s plane, marking anomalies. She was Hemlo Gold’s corporate counsel. And she’s straight as an arrow,” he said, “really enjoyable to work for.”
Bates added another positive aspect of working with Ms. Hibbard. “From a geologist’s point of view, Ingrid is willing to give us the time to understand the geology, to explore these things. She believed in the vision of a gold camp on the Detour Lake property and held onto it for eight years before the world caught on. We want to do the same thing in Obuasi – though hopefully in a much shorter timeframe!”
For more information:
Pelangio Exploration Inc.
440 Harrop Drive, 2nd Floor
Milton, Ontario
Canada L9T 3H2
Email: info@pelangio.com
Tel: 905-875-3828
Fax: 905-875-3829
Toll Free: 1-877-746-1632
Investor Relations
Tel: 905-875-3828
Toll Free 1-877-746-1632