Thursday May 20, 9:43 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Fremont Gold Corp. Announces New Property Acquisition and Three Joint
Venture Letter Agreements Signed
BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON--Fremont Gold Corporation (OTC BB:FGLD) (''Fremont'') is pleased to announce that it has signed a letter agreement to earn up to a 70 percent interest in the Milagro Property located in northern Chile.
Fremont has also signed three Letters of Intent with Caledonian Pacific Minerals N.L. (''Caledonian'') to jointly explore and develop the Milagro property and two other of Fremont's properties in Chile.
Caledonian is a well financed Australian junior exploration company with projects in Australia and New Caledonia and is listed on the Australian and Vancouver stock exchanges.
Fremont now has a total of four exploration properties in Chile, all of which will be actively explored by joint venture partners in the near future. This has successfully reduced Fremont's exposure to the
current poor market conditions for junior mineral exploration companies.
As part of the agreements with Caledonian, Fremont has been contracted to perform the exploration work on all three properties.
Milagro Property
The letter agreement with the owners of the Milagro Property allows Fremont to earn an initial 65 percent interest in the property by completing certain exploration activities and a feasibility study over a 4-year period. On completion of the feasibility study an additional 5 percent, giving Fremont a total of 70 percent, can be purchased from the owners.
Fremont has concurrently signed an agreement with Caledonian on the Milagro Property whereby Caledonian can earn an initial 55 percent in the property by assuming the underlying terms of the agreement with the owners. Fremont would retain a 10 percent interest in the property.
Although the Milagro property is only 10 kilometers from the Pan-American highway it has not previously been explored using modern exploration techniques. Mineralization occurs here in flat-lying
beds that have been mined for gold from the surface, at many locations over a large area, by local miners. Although this mining has generally occurred over widths of two to three meters the alteration associated with this gold mineralization appears to be much more widespread. Rock chip sampling by Fremont has returned values up to 11.4 g/t gold. The mineralized zones appear to extend under shallow cover in at least three directions and there is evidence, at a number of locations, of widespread epithermal style mineralization associated with an extensively altered diorite intrusive.
Cenizas Property
Fremont has signed an agreement with Caledonian on the Cenizas Property whereby Caledonian can earn a 75 percent interest in the property (Fremont 25 percent) by assuming the underlying terms of the
agreement with the owners.
Cenizas is a large property, covering some 13,000 hectares, located in the southern section of the West Fissure Fault Zone, a regional geological structure in northern Chile that hosts some of the world's
largest copper and gold deposits. This area has recently become the focus of attention for companies exploring for large copper and gold porphyry systems and there are currently several active exploration
projects in close proximity to Cenizas.
There are a number of compelling drill targets at Cenizas, particularly to the south where results of trench sampling by Fremont in one zone includes 42 meters at 1.00 g/t, 28 meters at 1.10 g/t and 4m at 6.6 g/t gold. Gold and possible copper mineralization appears to continue to the west under shallow gravel cover where enzyme leach geochemistry, completed by Fremont, has started to define large
untested anomalies.
Resguardo Property
Fremont has signed an agreement with Caledonian on the Resguardo Property whereby Caledonian can earn an 80 percent interest in the property (Fremont 20 percent) by assuming the underlying terms of
the agreement with the owners and spending US$1,500,000 on the property.
The Resguardo property is comprised of approximately 5,300 hectares and covers over a 9 kilometer segment of the Atacama Fault, a large regional structure that is an important geological feature of northern Chile because it hosts a number of significant gold and copper ore bodies.
Fremont's work at Resguardo has focused on a 4 kilometer segment of the Atacama Fault in the central part of the property where numerous shallow mine workings follow narrow high grade gold structures. Surface sampling and trenching results indicate that strongly anomalous to ore grade gold mineralization extends out into altered wallrocks between the high-grade shears.
In 1996 and 1997, Fremont completed 1,000 meters of diamond drilling and 4,000 meters of reverse-circulation drilling on the Resguardo property. This program identified a zone with good continuity of mineralization along at least 700 meters of strike length, which is open both along strike and downdip. Using these preliminary drilling results, an independent resource calculation indicated a resource of between 118,000 and 384,000 ounces of contained gold, depending on the cut-off grade used. More drilling is warranted in this area due to the potential to significantly expand this resource.
Financial Update
Management of Fremont persists in their efforts to raise additional financing to meet the working capital needs of the company. Due to the continuing poor market conditions, Fremont has been unable to raise
adequate working capital to meet its operating needs. This lack of working capital continues to impede Fremont's ability to meet its general and administrative burden and as such the company is in arrears in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company is assessing a variety of options at the moment but if management is unable to raise additional working capital, Fremont may be required to sell some, or all, of its assets.
Despite the lack of working capital Fremont has managed to identify additional exploration properties of merit and secure and advance the existing properties through arranging joint ventures.
Other News
Fremont's joint venture partner Southern Metals Corporation, has recently completed the first round of drilling on Fremont's Laja property, adjacent to Dayton Mining Corporation [AMEX:DAY - news]'s
Andacollo Gold Mine. Results of this work are expected shortly.
Fremont is a junior exploration company specializing in the acquisition and exploration of gold properties in Latin America.
This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results. Readers are referred to the documents filed
by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the most recent reports on
forms 10-QSB and 10-QSB that identify important risks which could cause actual results to differ from
those contained in the forward-looking statements.
Contact:
Fremont Gold Corp.
Michael J. Hopley
(360) 733-3854
fremontgold@nas.com
Still a LT buy, imo.
Joe PTG&LI !!! |
