Feb 21 2013
Colt Resources Inc. ("Colt" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that in an official signing ceremony held earlier today at the Company's 100% owned Tabuaço project the following concessions were formally awarded:
TABUAÇO EXPERIMENTAL MINING LICENCE
The Tabuaço Experimental Mining Licence (EML) in North-Eastern Portugal covers a total area of 45.13 km2, and has been granted to Colt following, and as a consequence of, the exploration project undertaken by the company at its Armamar-Meda exploration concession between 2007 and 2012.
The EML encloses the Tabuaço skarn-type tungsten (scheelite) deposits, which include the São Pedro das Águias (SPA) and Aveleira tungsten resource areas,and the adjacent exploration targets of the SPA-Aveleira Gap, the Quintã-Távora zone, as well as on the East bank of the Távora river.
Since acquiring the exploration rights over this area in late 2007, as part of its Armamar-Meda exploration concession, Colt carried out extensive outcrop sampling work, and then embarked on an exploration and evaluation diamond drilling program which to date involved in excess of 100 drill holes, totalling more than 11,400 metres.
The most recent NI 43-101 resource statement issued by Colt for the Tabuaço tungsten deposits (News Release of October 3rd, 2012) reported Indicated Mineral Resources of 1,495,000 tonnes grading 0.55% WO3 containing 815,000 MTU's and Inferred Mineral Resources of 1,230,000 tonnes grading 0.59% WO3 containing 720,000 MTU's (1 MTU = 1 metric tonne unit = 10kg of contained WO3) from the São Pedro das Águias and Aveleira deposits. Colt is continuing exploration work and is confident that the deposit has good potential for expansion.
As part of its experimental mining work program, Colt will proceed with the excavation of both an access adit and a vertical shaft into the São Pedro das Águias deposit, for the purpose of testing the proposed mining method, gathering further information on the rock mechanical conditions, and extracting a bulk sample for pilot ore concentration work. In addition the surface diamond drilling program will be continued to explore and evaluate the above referred deposits and exploration zones.
SANTO ANTÓNIO EXPERIMENTAL MINING LICENCE
The Santo António Experimental Mining Licence (EML) in North-Eastern Portugal covers a total area of 35.34 km2. This concession was granted to a joint venture between Colt and Brazilian company, Contecnica, in which the latter will be the operator (Press Release: September 4, 2012). The granting of this concession follows on the exploration project undertaken by Colt in the Penedono concession between 2007 and 2012.
The area is mostly underlain by multi-phase granitic intrusions of the Variscan tectonic cycle (Upper Paleozoic), which host a number of known gold deposits of the "Reduced Intrusion Related" type. These can consist of either individual veins such as at Sendim; clusters of quartz veins such as at Santo António (13 veins), Ferronha and Dacotim (3 main veins each); or sheeted vein systems with or without associated greisen envelopes, such as respectively at Turgueira and Marofa. Some tungsten mineral (wolframite) can also be present in these mineralized structures (e.g. Santo António, Turgueira) which can perhaps originate by-product tungsten production.
Mining activity in the area dates back to Roman times, when gold was produced from Santo António, Ferronha and Dacotim. Small scale artisanal tungsten (wolframite) mining took place in the area during the 1940's and 1950's. Gold mining attempts were also undertaken in the mid 20th Century from Ferronha, Dacotim and particularly Santo António. The latter was exploited by the Companhia das Minas de Ouro de Penedono in the 1950's, having produced a total of around 11,000 ounces of gold from a total of 105,000 tons of ore (ROM) extracted from underground mining along veins # 2 and 3, and to a minor extent veins # 7 and 13.
The 1950's Santo António mining plant never achieved an acceptable level of gold recovery and as a result the ca. 100,000 m3 of tailings material still existing at the Santo António mine are believed to host gold that may be recoverable using more modern methods.
During the experimental mining period the Joint Venture's activity will focus on: trial open pit mining at Turgueira; recovery of gold from the Santo António tailings; excavation of a new adit to access and de-water the Santo António underground workings and recover for pilot metallurgical testwork blasted ore left in the old galleries; and continuing evaluation drilling of the vein deposits.
BORBA EXPLORATION LICENCE
The Borba exploration licence in central-eastern Portugal covers a total area of 636 km2. It is located in the Variscan terrain known as the "Ossa-Morena Zone", the same terrain that hosts Colt's Boa Fé and Montemor projects, relative to which Borba is located approximately 65km due East.
The region is mostly known for its production of high quality marble dimension stone for the international market, namely from the municipalities of Estremoz, Borba and Vila Viçosa. Small scale underground mines produced copper until the early 20th Century from a number of disseminated deposits, namely Mostardeira, Miguel Vacas, Bugalho and Mociços. Modern opencast mining was carried out to exploit the oxide zone of the Miguel Vacas copper deposit in the period 1980-1990, during which an estimated total of around 1650 tonnes of copper metal were produced; upon the interruption of this exploitation the deposit was believed to be open both along strike and (particularly) down dip.
Modern exploration was carried out in the area between 1986 and 2006 by Rio Tinto, Carnon Holdings, Auvista Minerals, Prominas, Rio Narcea Gold Mines. Most of these exploration programs focussed on the gold potential of the area, having led to the discovery of several gold occurrences and anomalies which were poorly explored, such as at Almagreira, Torre and other locations, besides identifying gold contents also at the old copper mines of Bugalho, Mociços and Mostardeira.
The licence area geology encompasses several sedimentary and volcanic formations that extend from the Upper Proterozoic to the Devonian. The copper, copper-gold and gold mineralizations may occur in rocks of distinct ages as disseminations, veins and breccias which are associated with a zone of regional shearing extending for over 30 km in the NW-SE direction within the concession area.
CERCAL EXPLORATION LICENCE
The Cercal exploration license located in coastal Alentejo province (Southern Portugal) some 110km due South of Lisbon covers a total area of 455 km2. It is located within the Iberian Pyrite Belt, a prolific World-Class province of volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits with several centers of historical production of copper, lead, zinc, and to a lesser extent tin, gold and silver.
Historically, there were a number of small artisanal mines at Cercal exploiting Fe-Mn, Cu, Zn-Pb, Cu-Pb-Ag until the mid 20th Century; and a modern, small-size underground mine that produced Fe-Mn oxide concentrates (with by-product barite) to supply a Portuguese steel manufacturing plant until the early 1990's.
The license area also encloses the Salgadinho stockwork deposit, first discovered and explored by the Portuguese Government exploration department SFM between 1973 and 1979. The perception that the gold potential of this deposit was poorly investigated in the past (e.g. incomplete sampling not including gold assaying) led Colt to consider it as a gold exploration target for its exploration program.
Subsequent to the SFM discovery, the area was explored between the early 1980's and 2008 successively by Elf-Acquitaine, Empresa Mineira da Serra do Cercal Lda, and Northern Lion Gold Corporation.
The area also encloses favourable Carboniferous volcanic and sedimentary geology for the occurrence of both massive sulphide and disseminated gold deposits. In addition to Salgadinho, several geochemical and geophysical anomalies point at other potential occurrences of gold and/or base metals.