Wednesday 24 April 2013

Canada Fluorspar says latest Director vein results encouraging


Canada Fluorspar (CVE:CFI) has revealed the second set of drill results from its phase 1 diamond drilling program at its Director Vein on the company's St. Lawrence project in Newfoundland, saying it is encouraged by the data. 
The second set of results are from three holes drilled along the northern section of the Director Vein, after the first two holes of hte program were released in March. 
One of the latest three holes, DS-13-02, sits around 150 metres north from the old Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan) workings of the vein. The hole returned 0.78% fluorspar over 4 metres, with one metre of core recovered over 4 metres. 
Meanwhile, hole DS-13-103 hit 49.32% fluorspar over 10.03 metres, while hole DS-13-04 intersected 0.23% fluorspar over 3 metres, with 1.5 metres of core recovered over 3 metres. 
"We are encouraged by the results to date from our drilling program at Director," said company CEO Lindsay E. Gorrill in a statement Wednesday. 
"It is significant to note that the low grade intersections are actually 1,460 metres apart and we lost 75-90% of the core which could be the cause of the low grade," he said, adding that the company is now waiting for results on one more drill hole to complete the northern section. 
On the south extension, there are also 16 holes that are awaiting results. 
The company's 100 per cent owned St. Lawrence veins sit just outside of its Newspar joint venture in Newfoundland - part of the Canadian junior's two-prong strategy.
The Newspar joint venture is owned 50/50 split by Canada Fluorspar (CFI) and French chemical giant Arkema Inc. (Arkema), which has funded a total of $75 million for its half, through a direct investment in Newspar of $60 million and a $15.5 million investment in CFI at $0.75 per share. 
The junior company also has $17 million in available financing from the Newfoundland government, with an average 1.2 percent interest rate.  The partnership currently has approximately $65 million in the bank.
Though Gorrill told Proactive Investors that the Newspar venture is fully permitted with the ability to start construction once final engineering is finished and current cost reviews are completed (although he can’t provide any assurances), the company's 100 percent-owned Director Vein is the key, he says, to unlocking the "bigger dollars". 
The company has 41 known mineralized veins on its fluorspar assets in St. Lawrence, two of which – Blue Beach and Tarefare - have been drilled and vended into the partnership with Arkema, while drill rigs started working at its own Director Vein in January.
The first holes drilled returned values of 80.12% fluorspar over 3.95 metres, and 51.94% fluorspar over 13.39 metres.
The company’s Tarefare vein – which is now part of the Arkema joint venture - along with “the middle part” of the Director Vein, were mined previously by Alcan, which produced more than 4.2 million tonnes of fluorspar during a 44 year period from 1942 to 1977.
Canada Fluorspar said Wednesday that past underground mine operations document "the high grade, fine, sandy fluorite mineralization" in the Director vein structure. It is not known, however, whether the vein opens up again down depth because there are no drill holes below DS-13-102, it explained in the release. 
Shares of the junior explorer climbed by one penny this afternoon, to trade at 24 cents on the TSX Venture Exchange.     

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