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Antioquia Gold Shaping Up to be a Winner
By James West
MidasLetter.com
Thursday, October 8, 2009
If you’re one of the people who still thinks of Colombia as a dangerous place characterized by violence and poverty, you’re woefully misinformed. Having just spent a week in the now thrumming metropolis of Medellin for the Mining Colombia conference, I can’t think of a more vibrant, or safer, city. The upside of such a widespread misconception is defined in a single word: opportunity.
 Besides the conference, my main reason for visiting Colombia was to visit a project held by Antioquia Gold Corp (TSX.V:AGD)., one of only a handful of publicly traded mining exploration companies operating in Colombia whose relative obscurity only adds to the opportunity. With a market cap currently of CA$11.7 million (39 million shares out at closing price Friday, September 11, 2009 of $0.30), the company is at an early developmental stage.
Antioquia Gold is founded on a land package encompassing some 5,522 hectares of mountainous yet extremely accessible land in the Department (province) of Antioquia 70 kilometres northeast of Medellin. The altitude at Medellin is 1620 metres above sea level, and the highest elevation we reached at the drill site we visited was just over 1800 metres. The town of Cisneros, with a population of 7,000 inhabitants, is cradled in the valley floor surrounded by lush tropical vegetation and sugarcane fields.
It took us two hours to get to the company’s field office, but only because the traffic in Medellin was snarled in typical rush hour fashion. The scenery on the way was stunning, and the ride very comfortable. Development of major processing facilities, if required, will pose no logistical problems beyond those of any mining facility in any first world country. There is a narrow gauge railway running from Medellin to Cisneros, a 4 lane highway is under construction heading out of Medellin, and the property itself is intersected by a 3 phase power line. In terms of infrastructure, the project is optimally located.
Artisenal miners continue to extract and process ore from relatively shallow, hand-hewn adits and drifts, and it is this activity that first drew the attention of geologists. The relationship among Antioquia and these subsistence miners is best characterized as friendly, and the geologists have ready access to samples from within these mines that are invaluable pieces of the puzzle now under construction.
During a well structured presentation under a Zapote tree that occasionally dropped its delicious and succulent fruits onto our heads, VP of Exploration Brad Van Den Bussche detailed the quality control procedures that company had instituted to protect the integrity of core sample results. Without going into all the detail, they can be summed up as adhering to if not exceeding industry “best practices”.
He then handed the discussion over to Rosalba Salinas, Senior Geological Advisor for Antioquia Gold. Rosalba was a senior geologist with INGEOMINAS and has 30 years experience in mineral exploration in Colombia, She explained the systematic approach the company was taking to soil sampling, which, in the tradition of best practices, followed a grid on 100 metre spacings. Where the grid sample point occurred on a stream, the company also has incorporated stream sediment samples from which it sluices gold in the “panning for gold” sense of the word to augment the body of knowledge it is developing.
“In this whole area, there is essentially only one rock type,” she explained, “which is a granodiorite, (a type of granite). The mineralization here is structurally controlled completely, and runs in both east-west and north south trending structures. Most of the artisan workings extend only 30 metres or so into the mountain, and the absolutely furthest they’ve gone is 200 metres. They essentially hand dig through friable material, and soon as they hit the hard rock, they stop. It’s very complicated to buy dynamite in Colombia.”
What was fascinating was that the company’s geological model had contemplated the likelihood of narrow veins of 1 metre in average width widely dispersed across the land package. But geochemistry and geophysical results have forced the company to toss out that theory and embrace a new one, which stipulates the likelihood of much wider vein widths (2 metres plus) and in abundance.
In the words of company chairman Jim Decker, “We know there’s gold here…its just a question of how much and is it economic to mine”.
With gold showing up in rock samples assaying as much as 76 grams per tonne gold nearly 5 km away from the current area of focus on the newly acquired Bullet claims, the potential for a major discovery here would appear to be quite good.
According to Ms. Salinas, “in the Bullet zone, we have just started the process of mapping and sampling to get a sense of what we’ve got on the Bullet claims”.
Crucial Social and Environmental Bases Covered
During a modest lunch at a local restaurant, German Guerrero, who is VP Operations for Colombia for AGD, outlined the steps the company was already taking to both integrate itself socially into the community, as well as to establish Antioquia as a company who was going to treat the local ecology with respect.. German is a Mining Engineer with 16 years experience in Colombia with INGEOMINAS and as an owner manager with the consulting company IGTER.
According to German, the company is committed to both the environmental integrity of the project area and its natural resources, and are determined to minimize the disturbance footprint of the operations during exploration production and remediation. The company is committed to leaving the ground under which the mineral wealth lies in as pristine a condition as before any exploration was started. The company also plans to remediate ecologies disrupted by artisan miners, who typically lack the resources to return exploited areas to natural health.
Antioquia gold has initiated environmental baseline studies and so will comply and exceed local regulations.
In terms of social and cultural contributions to the area surrounding Cisneros, the local population has some serious issues that undermine its ability to thrive as a divers community. Drug abuse, alcoholism, and prostitution are rampant in the town, thanks to the limited opportunities the subsistence farming community can offer its young people. Besides the obvious economic benefits of commercial mineral production, Antioquia Gold has undertaken, at its own expense, a socio-economic study that helped them understand the communities they might be in a position to assist.
The study focused on 3 communities within their claim boundaries, and they found that unemployment ran in the 20% range, and youth were fleeing the area almost as soon as they were physically capable. The company is acutely aware of how important it is to provide good corporate stewardship, and these activities undertaken before exploration ever began in earnest is a testimony, in my opinion, to management’s foresight. In the words of President Rick Thibault, “At the end of the day the cost of doing it right is cheaper than doing it wrong.”
Mining and Investment in Colombia
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), an investment branch of the World Bank, has identified Colombia as a primary target for mining investment because of the potential for substantial development impact from the mining sector.
According to figures provided by the technical department of the Bank of the Republic, in 2008 the
foreign direct investment in Colombia reached US$10.6 billion, the highest amount ever registered in the country, which represents growth of 17% from official figures of 2007 (US $9.04 billion).
During the first trimester of 2009, Colombia received US$2.52 billion in foreign direct investment, a slight decrease of 12% compared to the $2.87 billion received during the same period in 2008.
Also, final figures reported for 2008 indicated that consolidated foreign investment totaled US$10.6 billion for 2008, not the US$10.56 previously reported.
Of the foreign direct investment received by Colombia during the first trimester of 2009, US$ 866 million was concentrated in the Mining & Quarrying sector, about 34% of the total net investment. As of March this year, the sector has experienced significant growth of 29% over the same period in 2008 when net investment recorded was US$ 673 million.
Political Stability and Security in Colombia
Before this visit to Colombia, I was vaguely uneasy about the whole idea of coming here. I’m sitting in my room in a Holiday Inn Express in the suburb of Poblado, having decided to extend my stay because I am so enamored of the city of Medellin, its culture and people. I regularly walk back to the hotel late at night after social engagements with my many new Colombian friends, and at no point have I felt the slightest unease about my safety.
That being said, any nation who has a segment living in poverty means opportunistic crimes against person and property are a reality. The security of Medellin in whole can be summed up by the statement that it’s slightly better than Vancouver and a whole lot better than Baltimore. Normal precautions apply.
On a national basis, the administration of president Álvaro Uribe Vélez has proven its commitment to the eradication of the FARC guerillas and of the “Narcos” as they are here referred to. Soldiers and police are abundant, and every building has a security guard patrolling outside.
There still areas of intense conflict among narcos, paramilitary types, and FARC guerillas, but despite the fact that indigenous civilians are the most common casualty, the Colombian military is relentless in its determination to destroy the drug trade in Colombia.
"Let the day come soon when we can truly say we have defeated the criminal drug-trafficking gangs and the guerrillas who still linger out there causing so much damage, killing our indigenous Awa," Mr Uribe said.
It doesn’t hurt that the United States is a regular and substantial donor of finances, weapons and expertise in the ongoing battle.
CONCLUSION
Antioquia Gold is doing everything right, in my opinion. The property has demonstrated through sampling and artisanal mining the potential for a major discovery on the order of many millions of ounces gold.
Our plan is to start accumulating shares in the open market throughout the drill program, and continue accumulating to $1 a share with continuing drill success. Because of the other major projects enjoying success right now in Colombia, the slightest hint of a major discovery hole will likely send these shares northward on a steep trajectory and in no time at all. That’s what I like about this project. Even if this program doesn’t hit a major discovery hole, there are so many additional targets that its got a lot of possibility.
SOURCE: http://www.midasletter.com/news/09100806_Anitoquia-gold-shaping-up-to-be-a-winner.php
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