Int’l Platinum counting on `big picture’ approach

Eighteen platinum properties in six provinces, the Northwest Territories and one United States state has made International Platinum Canada’s busiest white metal explorer.

The company has been at it for five years now, but with no major mine making discoveries. This week, the company’s shares hit a 52-week low on the TSE of $1.70 compared to a pre-Oct 18 price of $5.00.

But no signs of impatience were in evidence at the company’s well- attended annual meeting in Toronto.

Instead, shareholders listened quietly to Ian Chisholm, manager of platinum exploration, describe the company’s “big picture” approach to platinum mine finding. That approach includes gathering grassroots information from 17 properties in Canada and one in the U.S. Drilling on three of these properties is at relatively wide spacings compared to a typical gold property.

A 3-year $5.5-million agreement with Degussa AG of West Germany ($3.25 million) and Jenkim Holdings (Canada) ($2.3 million) gives International Platinum the luxury of taking such a “big picture” approach to exploration. Although it does not make exciting news, the approach adds significant information to the the company’s base of platinum exploration knowledge.

On the Big Trout Lake property in northwestern Ontario, for example, 11 holes have been drilled at about 2,000-ft intervals along a 3 1/2- mile trend. Results from the first 11 holes have confirmed the trend along two miles and cover a wide range of values from 0.03 oz platinum group metals (PGMs) per ton to 0.28 oz per ton.

A 23-ft wide layer of chromite, intersected in many of these holes, has generated peripheral excitement within the company.

It will probably become the largest concentration of this most strategic of metals in North America, according to Chisholm. The property’s remote location and the bulk of concentrates which would have to be shipped out make such a mine unlikely.

International Platinum assays drill core at intervals of every metre.

On the Muskox intrusion in the Northwest Territories, the company has picked up two drill targets from a UTEM geophysical survey. “They are located in the right place — on the margins of the intrusion — in what appear to be flat-lying orientation, about 200 ft below surface,” Chisholm says. A 6,500-ft drilling program is scheduled to start on the Muskox this month.

At Fox River, Man., where B.P. Selco has earned a 60% interest, 15 holes have intersected five zones with highly significant platinum values. Another 12,000 ft of drilling is planned to start in August on the central and western parts of the claims.

International Platinum will be financing two airborne electromagnetic surveys this summer as well — one over the gravel-covered eastern extension of the Delta Sill in Ungava, Que. and one over the swamp-covered intrusion at Reed Lake, Man.

Field crews will be mobilizing in the coming weeks as well to identify drilling targets on the company’s other properties.

Dr Fred Seligmann, who represents International Platinum’s main financial backers, Degussa, says there appears to be sufficient patience within his company to finance International Platinum for another 10 years.

The 3-year financial agreement between the world’s largest platinum refiner and the largest platinum explorer in Canada expires in 1990. (about 16 inches)