The Flagstaff mountain property consists of 36 unpatented claims of approximately 720 acres. It is located 15 km south of Rossland BC, in Washington State and is readily accessible from the town of Northport, WA. Although the property is highly prospective for both high grade gold and silver mineralization, do to current market conditions we are currently primarily focused on developing our cash generating asset which is Barite.
Barite is used as a weighting agent for oil and gas drilling and currently sells at $61/ton at the mine gate. A Mine Permit was received from the Spokane Office of the US BLM to mine the historic open pit barite resource at a maximum rate of 100,000 tons a year.
We have since entered into an agreement with Matovitch Mining Industries Ltd (MMIL) to supply approximately 20,000 tons per year of 4.1 specific gravity (SG) barite. The company commenced production of barite from the mine and currently have an approximate stockpiles of 35,000 tons awaiting further processing to achieve exact specific gravity desired.
New Zealand
The Company has received permits from Crown Minerals New Zealand on three gold properties in close proximity to Reefton, west coast, South Island. A 3,000 meter diamond drill program is underway on the Alexander River property; which was the location of a historic mine that produced 41,000 ounces of gold from 47,000 tons of ore. Alexander River lies approximately 25 km south-east of Reefton. The Lyell property, which contains the historic mines, Red Queen and Stratconor, lies approximately 25 km north-east of Reefton, and the Paparoa property, which lies approximately 25 km south-west of Reefton. Historic reports indicate that approximately 8 million ounces of placer gold and 2 million ounces of lode gold have been recovered from the Reefton gold camps. The Reefton gold district is one of the three main gold districts in NZ. Dr. Clay Conway, Ph.D. P.Geol, a director of the Company, is the Company's senior consulting geologist on these projects.
The Ivanhoe Creek property, a Midas-type gold-silver prospect, is located in the in the Carlin trend in the Northern Nevada Rift area of Nevada, in close proximity to Great Basin Gold's Hollister Development Block.
In June 2007, a historic bentonite deposit of unknown size was discovered on the Ivanhoe Creek property and was staked as placer claims.
A drill reclamation bond has been posted with the Reno office of the US BLM and the bentonite property is drill permitted and subject to financing, a drill program is planned to determine the extent of the bentonite.