Eagle Star updates shareholders on shift to phosphates in Brazil

In a letter to shareholders on Thursday, Eagle Star Minerals (CVE:EGE) detailed  its plans to shift its strategy in favour of focusing on agro-minerals, like phosphates, in Brazil.
The news comes just days after Eagle Star announced its acquisition of the Samba phosphate project, located in the western portion of Piaui state in Brazil.
Over the past year, the company said it had recognized certain "opportunistic trends" in Brazil, in a significant lack of sufficient domestic supply of agro-minerals, and as a result decided to reposition itself to focus on its agro-minerals projects in the country.
With the help of its senior advisors and its local geological team, the company said it identified and staked areas with significant potential to host large phosphate deposits.
Eagle Star said it was drawn to the property by regional reconnaissance work, which investigated an area of 200 by 170 kilometres in the region of Piauí state covered by the Longá Formation (Parnaiba Basin). Three sub areas of the Parnaiba Basin were identified with rock types carrying phosphate mineralization.
Due to the large target area of the regional exploration program, Eagle Star completed regional and follow up sampling on existing road cuts, generating 201 channel samples.
Lab results received earlier this week showed an "excellent exploration case", the company said, with 12 percent of samples returning values of over the 2.5% phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) cut-off grade.
In the regional area of the project, sample 49855 returned 11.87 percent P2O5, while samples 49871 and 50577 returned a whopping 17.6 percent P2O5 and 12.35 percent P2O5, respectively.
On the actual Samba property, sample 51028 returned 9.42 percent P2O5, while sample 51063 returned 6.4 percent P2O5, and sample 51070 yielded 48.51 percent P2O5.
The 109,285-hectare Samba property, which consists of 60 mineral claims, is located near the cities of Valenca and Sao Jose do Peixe in Brazil, and near Eagle Star's Ruth project.
Late last year, Eagle Star said it identified high potential for phosphate mineralization at the Ruth project, which is also located in the state of Piaui, Brazil.
The company said it is focused on the Salvador target in the south of the Ruth project, but it has also initiated work on the Brasilia target in the north.
As of November 2011, the first phase of trenching was completed on the Salvador target, which included 11 excavations, while 10 trenches are planned for Brasilia.
Eagle Star said it is planning an aggressive follow up exploration program at both the Samba and Ruth properties, in order to investigate each project's potential to host significant phosphate resources.
The program, which will consist of additional mapping, sampling, geophysical surveying, trenching, airborne interpretation and drilling, is intended to focus on further detailing the most encouraging areas, while looking to laterally expand the phosphate mineralization.
Eagle Star said it will develop drill targets and being a drill program on at least one of the properties by the second quarter of this year.
In light of these new developments, the company said it has decided to stop its exploration work on the Angico iron ore property, despite its "excellent potential" to host significant iron ore mineralization.