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Lichkvaz-Tey Refractory Gold Project
In September 2008, BacTech signed a strategic alliance agreement with CanBiomine Resources Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Caldera Resources Inc., based in Montreal, Quebec. CanBiomine is focused on recovering base and precious metals from mine waste dumps and tailings dams using BacTech's bioleaching technology.
In October 2009, Caldera received permission from the Ministry of Nature Protection of the Republic of Armenia to conduct geologic studies to evaluate the Lichkvaz-Tey refractory gold deposit, located in Southern Armenia. The Lichkvaz-Tey gold property has a Soviet-era GKZ (Russian Federation State Commission on Mineral Resources) mineral resource, categorized as C1 and C2, of 3.4 million tonnes grading on average 5.1 g/t Au, 33.2 g/t Ag and 0.41% Cu. This translates to approximately 575,000 oz of gold, 3.7 million oz of silver and 33.4 million pounds of copper.
All numbers are historical and there is no National Instrument 43-101 compliant report prepared for this project. The data presented above was referenced from the Mining-Metallurgical Institute of Armenia in 1986 Protocol GKZ USSR N 10081 dd.28/11/1986. Caldera is in the process of obtaining these historical reports so as to establish a sampling and exploration program in order to create a NI 43-101 compliant report. The references to the GKZ mineral resource estimates appear in independently prepared technical reports which are now in government archives and were prepared for the former property owners. According to the Committee for Mineral Reserves International Reporting Standards (CRIRSCO), "C1" and "C2" classifications are equivalent to "indicated" and "inferred" resources.
The property was explored during the Soviet era, resulting in 18 km of drives and tunnels on 8 underground levels, spaced 40 m to 100 m apart vertically and in numerous raises. The property is located 380 km south of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, with access to power, water, a local workforce, and to the main highway serving the area.
The project is being pursued jointly with Caldera. BacTech has the option to acquire a 40% interest in Caldera's subsidiary, Biomine LLC, in return for providing technical support and test work for the project.
Dr. Paul Miller, BacTech's Vice President of Technology and Engineering, who reviewed internal data on the project, commented that, "The project is a good candidate for bioleaching due to the refractory nature of the ore and the strong interaction of arsenic with both base metals and gold. The limited amount of diagnostic work suggests that high gold extractions should be readily achievable if an oxidation technique such as bioleaching were used prior to cyanidation for either ore or concentrate treatment."
Caldera has assembled a geological team to retrieve samples from the Lichkvaz-Tey deposit which will allow for the bioleach test work to begin. BacTech will undertake bioleach test work at the University of Toronto to confirm the recoveries when using bioleaching to liberate the gold and copper associated with the deposit.
About Armenia
Armenia sits in a geological formation know as the Tethyan Belt, which contains some of the world's largest gold porphyry deposits. The Tethyan Belt is a major porphyry-related mineralized zone that extends across central and South-eastern Europe, Turkey, Armenia, Iran, Pakistan, through the Himalayan region into Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
There are currently several mining companies extracting copper, zinc, molybdenum and gold in Armenia. Dundee Precious Metals operates the Kappan polymetalic mine, extracting zinc, copper, silver and gold. On the exploration front, Lydian Resources is drilling a 1 million plus oz gold resource in its Amulsar project.
Additional Information
Please refer to the news releases below for additional information on the project:
BacTech Partner Caldera to Commence Collection of Samples at Armenian Gold Project for Bioleach Test Work, November 17, 2009
BacTech's Partner Caldera Receives Permission to Access the Lichkvaz-Tey Gold Project, October 20, 2009
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