Exploration is under way on Venezuela’s Lo Increible property, and expectations are running high.
Labyrinth Resource (VSE), which has a market capitalization of close to $90 million, holds an option on most of the ground covering a gold-producing belt 8 km long by 1-1.5 km wide.
Some 86 small, hardrock mining operations are scattered along the belt, near Puerto Ordaz, and about 50 are in production.
The option covers all ground surrounding the various workings and Labyrinth has signed further options on most of the pits.
About 5.8 million oz. have been mined from the region over the past 100 years and Labyrinth notes that modern exploration techniques are being used there for the first time.
The small-scale miners simply moved from one near-surface gold zone to another, sometimes not following the zone on strike or testing below unexposed areas.
Clive Johnson, president, noted that Venezuela has traditionally been explored for its oil resources, with its non-petroleum mineral potential going largely ignored.
At the annual meeting, Lo Increible was compared with Las Cristinas, a gold project owned by Placer Dome a few hundred kilometers to the south. None of the current or former operations extend below about 25 metres, and Labyrinth is conducting extensive surface sampling over available exposures in some of the small workings.
The sampling is being following by trenching. The first trench, near the southern end of the property, returned an average grade of 0.088 oz. gold over 144 ft. Results from this trench and visual inspection of others indicate that gold mineralization may be continuous between the known workings.
More trenching results are expected in mid-December and the company plans to begin reverse circulation drilling in early January to follow up the work. Bema Gold (TSE) owns 8.2 million of Labyrinth’s 16.7 million shares and holds warrants to buy an additional 7.3 million.
Labyrinth is changing its name to El Callao Mining and would, on a fully diluted basis, have 28 million shares outstanding.
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