14th Feb 2007 08:44
Amur Minerals Corporation14 February 2007 14 February 2007 Amur Minerals Corporation ("Amur" or "the Company") Amur Wins Auction for New Project Area Doubles Its Land Position Amur Minerals Corporation (AIM: AMC) announces it has won the auction for theright to explore and extract nickel, copper, platinum and associated metals onthe Kustakskaya Project, located immediately to the east of Amur's principal KunManie nickel-copper project . The addition of this project area expands Amur'sholdings by 1,034 square kilometres in the immediate area representing anincrease of 109% to a total of 1,984 kilometres. At the Kun-Manie project, Amurhas so far drilled out a substantial nickel resource approaching 264,000 nickelequivalent tonnes and examined only about 40% of its main target zone known asthe Krumkon Trend. Highlights: • Amur's successful bid to acquire Kustakskaya was for 6.3 million Russian Roubles, equivalent to US $240,000. This is based on a conversion rate of 26.4 Roubles per US$. • The nearly contiguous land package now stands at nearly 2,000 square kilometres. The boundary between the Kun-Manie and Kustakskaya licences is the Russian Federation provincial border between the Amur Oblast and Khabarovsk Krai. • The Kustakskaya area contains two separate geological terrains. The southern half of the licence exhibits the same geologic setting and contains the same types of rock and similar nickel mineralisation observed along the Krumkon Trend. This licence contains the easternmost limits of the Trend within the Kun-Manie licence. The northern half of the licence is characterised by Mesozoic porphyry copper style intrusions that have seen little historic exploration. • The Company will now register the licence with State and Federal agencies, and the date of registration will constitute the first day of the 25-year licence period. • The exploration programme will be conducted in a phased approach with work on the ground beginning 15 months after the registration of the licence. Robin Young, Amur's Chief Executive Officer, commented: "This new licencedoubles the size of our land package in the immediate area. As a result, AmurMinerals now controls an area that approaches 1.5% the size of England.Historical information indicates the newly acquired area to be geologically verysimilar to that which we already control where we have already defined anextensive amount of nickel. In addition, the northern half includes porphyrytype copper targets. We now consider this area to be a district rather thanjust a deposit, and we will continue to look for further opportunities in thisarea." Location The Kustakskaya project is located in the Khabarovsk Krai, immediately to theeast of the Company's Kun-Manie licence in the Amur Oblast, and comprises 1,034square kilometres of land. The Amur - Khabarovsk provincial boundary is thewestern edge of the Kustakskaya licence area and the eastern edge of theKun-Manie licence area. Kustakskaya is located within the Tuguro-Chumikanadministrative district of Khabarovsk Krai. Specific licence boundaries bylatitude and longitude are: Corners of Latitude Longitude Licence Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds 1 55 17 20 132 40 0 2 55 29 0 133 15 0 3 55 20 30 133 27 30 4 55 8 30 133 17 30 5 55 10 30 132 57 0 Geology and Potential The geology of the southern half of the Kustakskaya area is similar to that ofthe Kun-Manie area wherein the Company has defined the presence of significantnickel-copper mineralisation. This area of the newly acquired licence isdominated by a zone (the Krumkon Trend) which contains disseminated andveinlet-hosted nickel within websterites, pyroxenites and peridotites.Historical Russian sampling has indicated elevated nickel grades as high as0.72% to 1.12% within the licence area, and cobalt grades approaching 0.11% to0.18%. The mineralisation is reported to be controlled by flat-lying structureswithin mafic to ultramafic host rocks very similar to those identified withinthe Krumkon Trend within the Kun-Manie licence, immediately to the west ofKustakskaya. The existing anomalous information covers an area of approximately100 square kilometres. The northern half of the licence area is dominated by Mesozoic granitesanomalous in both copper and cobalt, and molybdenum is also present. The regioncontains a complex alteration and geochemical halo covering an area approaching190 square kilometres. Quartz veins of 1.5 metres in thickness have beenidentified and include both malachite and chalcopyrite in disseminated andveinlet form. Copper grades range up to 0.6% with gold as high as 0.3 g/t. Exploration Exploration to date is comprised of historical Russian work conducted betweenthe 1950's and latter 1990's. The programme included airborne geophysics,regional geochemical sampling and stream sediment sampling. Overall, thehistorical exploration programmes have previously identified the area ascontaining highly prospective nickel results which exceed those derived fromsimilar programmes completed within the Kun-Manie licence area. Reconnaissance by the Company has substantiated some of the historical work, butconfirmatory work is planned in order to establish the comprehensive veracity ofthe historical results. Terms of the Licence Requirements related to the licence include the following: • A proposed work programme for exploration must be filed and approved by appropriate Russian agencies within 12 months of the registration of the licence • Actual exploration on the project site must begin 15 months from the registration date of the licence. • Exploration is defined to cover a three year period during which 1,000 cubic metres of trenching and 5,000 metres of drilling must be completed. A geological report is to be submitted to the local resource administrative agency (Dalnedra) reporting the P1 and P2 resources. • Thereafter, a prospecting period must be undertaken within five and a half years of registration of the licence. If work indicates the project is economically viable, infrastructure construction must be undertaken within 9.5 years of licence registration and mining shall begin within 11 years. Production must be no less than 100,000 tonnes of ore per year. • A site closure plan must be submitted 6 months before closure of operations. The information contained in this announcement has been reviewed and approved bythe CEO of Amur, Robin Young. Mr. Young is a Geological Engineer (cum laude) andis a Qualified Professional Geologist, as defined by the Toronto and VancouverStock Exchanges. Enquiries: Amur Minerals Corp. RBC Capital Markets Parkgreen CommunicationsRobin Young Andrew Smith Victoria ThomasCEO Martin Eales+44 (0) 7981 126 818 +44 (0) 20 7029 7881 +44 (0) 20 7851 7480 Notes to Editors About Amur Minerals Amur's principal asset is the 100% owned Kun-Manie exploration licence, anickel-copper deposit located in the Amur Province in the far east of theRussian Federation. The Kun-Manie licence area is approximately 950 km(2) andis located 700 km northeast of the capital city of Blagoveshchensk and is 750kmnorth of the Chinese border. In April 2004 ZAO Kun-Manie, a wholly ownedsubsidiary of Amur, was granted a licence to explore for nickel and relatedmetals, including copper and platinum, in respect of the Kun-Manie licence. Work carried out to date on the Kun-Manie licence including diamond coredrilling, trenching and geological mapping has identified four mineralisedtargets; the Vodorazdelny, Ikenskoe, Maly Krumkon and Falcon zones, three ofwhich warrant further exploration as the limits of the mineralisation have notbeen identified. The four zones are located within a 15 kilometre long segmentof the 40 kilometre long Krumkon Trend. This trend is the primary explorationtarget within the licence area. An additional three targets identified asChornie Ispelene, Yan Hegd and Kubuk (also referred to as Ata) have beenidentified as additional drill targets. Chornie Ispelene and Kubuk lie withinthe trend whilst Yan Hegd is located approximately 8 kilometres to its north.Approximately 50% of the Krumkon Trend remains to be examined by reconnaissancework where existing Soviet data indicates potential exists to identifyadditional drill targets. Exploration drill results have been utilised by SRK Consulting to calculateresources. These include resources of the Measured, Indicated and Inferredcategories which have been estimated for the deposits of Vodorazdelny, Ikenskoeand Maly Krumkon. Effective January, 2007, the independently compiled ResourceEstimate consists of a total of 53.3 Mt at a mean grade of 0.48% nickel and0.14% copper containing 254,500 tonnes of nickel; and 73,000 tonnes of copper.This is summarised in the following table. SRK Consulting's 2006 Year End Resource Report Orebody Tonnage Ni Ni Cu Cu (Mt) (%) (t) (%) (t) Vodorazdelny Indicated 5.9 0.71 41,800 0.20 11,800 Ikenskoe Measured 3.7 0.61 22,700 0.16 5,800 Indicated 26.8 0.42 111,300 0.12 32,700 Sub-total 30.5 0.44 134,000 0.13 38,500 Inferred 5.9 0.49 28,700 0.13 7,500 Total Ikenskoe 36.4 0.45 162,700 0.13 46,000 Maly Krumkon Inferred 11.0 0.45 50,000 0.14 15,200 Total Measured 3.7 0.61 22,700 0.16 5,800 Total Indicated 32.7 0.47 153,100 0.14 44,500 Total Inferred 16.9 0.47 78,700 0.13 22,700 Grand Total 53.3 0.48 254,500 0.14 73,000 Presently, Amur is compiling a prefeasibility study on the Kun-Manie Project tobe completed in the second quarter of 2007. Concurrently, work is also beingconducted on the assembly of a report to be submitted to the State Committee onReserves (GKZ). Upon approval, the GKZ shall issue a certificate of "Discovery". This certification allows the Company to continue along the process of converting portions of the exploration licence into a mining licence. Immediately to the east of the Kun-Manie licence and across the Amur Oblast andKhabarovsk Krai border, Amur has acquired the Kustakskaya Project. This 1,034square kilometre, 25 year exploration and production licence contains twogeological terrains. Each terrain contains a different mineralisation typetarget. The southern half of the licence is interpreted to be a continuation ofthe Krumkon Trend identified within the Kun-Manie exploration licence. Thenorthern half of the licence area contains Mesozoic granitic intrusives whereinhistorical Russian results indicate the potential for copper, cobalt and minornickel to be present. The Company will undertake field exploration of thislicence area in 2008 in accordance with the terms of the licence. Havingrecently acquired this licence, the Company places no value on this property. Amur also controls the Anadjakan gold-copper exploration licence in KharaborvskKrai near the well-infrastructured city of Elban. The Company chooses not toreport any value on this asset until it concludes its comprehensive review ofall information and verifies existing Russian results. The 2007 explorationprogramme for this area is designed to check the historical results and definefuture drill targets. The exploration of this licence area will begin duringthe 2007 field season. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange