|
|
Unigold Inc. (UGD) |
|
|
|
CEOCFO
Interview Index |
This is a printer friendly page! Unigold’s Los
Candelones Gold Deposit is in the early stages of evaluation by diamond drilling, which
could host a significant gold deposit. BIO: Unigold’s strategy in the Dominican Republic is
to target, bulk tonnage, open pittable, oxide gold deposits. Unigold’s goal is to
find a gold deposit equivalent in size to the world class Pueblo Viejo Gold Mine which has
produced over 5 million ounces since 1975 and contains an additional geological inventory
of 30 million ounces of gold. The Unigold exploration properties are located in the
western extent of the Cretaceous volcanic belt close to the border with Haiti and are
underlain by very favourable geology in an environment known to host the world class
Pueblo Viejo Gold Mine. The Neita property particularly contains about 20 large
hydrothermal alteration zones as identified by an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey
which are partly coincident with gold in stream sediment anomalies that represent prime
targets for exploration work. Limited follow-up soil geochemistry, trenching and diamond
drilling has shown that there is significant gold in the geological system. One gold
resource, the Los Candelones Gold Deposit, with 4 parallel IP chargeability high zones
with strike lengths varying from 400 to 900 meters have already been found on the Neita
property. Three of the chargeability highs have been partly tested by diamond drilling and
all 3 are gold bearing. There is a very high probability of hosting additional gold
resources. The bulk of the area in these properties has seen minimal exploration as the
government has withheld these properties from public acquisition until Unigold acquired
the properties in mid-2002. CEOCFOinterviews: Mr. Thompson, will you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to your position at Unigold? Mr. Thompson: “I am a geologist and an engineer. I spent thirty years in the exploration business; about ten years in uranium and ten years with International Corona, mostly in gold. I spent close to nine years as a consultant in Mongolia, China and South America. I have a general idea of geology and mineral deposits in the world. Personally, I became involved as president and CEO of Unigold just after the group got together about 2 years ago. The group raised nine hundred thousand dollars in seed money, and went and acquired the property in the Dominican Republic. They began a reverse take over of an existing company and at that point, they needed somebody to run the operation and they asked me to join them. The last year and a half has been very interesting. We have excellent properties and I expect that we will be able to take this company to at least a small producer.” CEOCFOinterviews: Why did you choose the Dominican Republic and what properties do you have there? Mr. Thompson: “The Dominican Republic is a country that has a good representative government that is modeled somewhat on the U.S. model. In terms of agriculture and tourism it is stable. It is 1000 kilometers south of Miami with a history of mining and I think it was an excellent choice. We have two properties, which the government took off the market in 1980. In 2002 they decided it was time to allow private participation and Unigold acquired the properties, which comprise 809 square kilometers located on the western side of the Dominican Republic. There is good gold mineralization on the properties, which occur within a 75 kilometer wide band of very favorable volcanic rock that runs right through the central area of the Dominican Republic. We are now taking the properties one step further.” CEOCFOinterviews: What distinguishes your philosophy of what to look for in a property? Mr. Thompson: “We are looking at trying to find something similar to Pueblo Viejo, which is a world class gold deposit that is in the center of the Dominican Republic. Placer Dome is doing a feasibility study on that and all indications that they will be able to make a production decision on it in early 2005. This particular deposit has about 17.5 million ounces of gold in reserve/resource. We are looking at similar geology on our property and the mineralization located to date is also very similar.” CEOCFOinterviews: Where are you in the process now? Mr. Thompson: “We are still in the early stages. We have 32 drill holes in one zone on our Los Candelones Gold Deposit within a gold in soil geochemical anomaly that encompasses about 1.2 kilometers by 600 meters. The gold geochemistry overlies parallel induced polarization chargeability zones suggesting the presence of sulphides. There are about five parallel sulfide zones that are identified, each being 400-900 meters in length. Sporadic drilling has shown that 4 of the sulphide zones are known to contain some gold mineralization. We are getting results of 3.1 grams over 31 meters, which are excellent results for open pit low grade mineralization that we are looking at.” CEOCFOinterviews: What is next and what is the timetable? Mr. Thompson: “The next step for us on our Dominican Republic properties will be to use a combination of exploration techniques to evaluate the known gold mineralization and large hydrothermally altered zones on our Neita property. We have about twenty anomalous areas that require work. On these, we will be doing everything from regional geology to soil geochemistry to trenching and hopefully finishing up with drilling. At the Los Candelones Gold Deposit on which we are focusing, we will also conduct an integrated exploration program but weighted towards drilling to continue to evaluate this mineralized area. We are probably looking at another year of drilling on Los Candelones to fully understand and to start to develop the resource. All indications are that it could be significant.” CEOCFOinterviews: Will you tell us about your funding to proceed the way you want? Mr. Thompson: “Over the past year, we have raised about three million dollars through private placement funding, through one of the brokers here in Toronto. We are presently finalizing another private placement of another million and a half dollars. We rely on selling shares to the public and we have been successful at being able to raise money and move our projects forward, so that the shareholders will advance more money for the drilling.” CEOCFOinterviews: In this particular economic climate, people have been looking at gold investment. Do you find that helpful? Mr. Thompson: “Gold at four hundred dollars per ounce certainly does us no harm whatsoever. A fair number of companies are looking for money, although the summer months are generally a little slower than other months. The gold prices should stay at about four hundred. The climate for raising more money and significant shareholder appreciation should be good this fall.” CEOCFOinterviews: Are you affected by the hurricanes in that area? Mr. Thompson: “About a month and a half ago, there was a disaster in the western part of the Dominican Republic, close to the Haitian border and there was a mud slide. This is very rare. It happened because there was an unusual amount of rain very quickly. On the other side of the mountain chain, we do get a rainy season but it is not a major problem. Hurricanes have not had much affect recently.” CEOCFOinterviews: In closing, why should investors look at Unigold? Mr. Thompson: “We have outstanding up side potential. We are focusing on gold and the gold price is appreciating. We are in the Dominican Republic, which is a stable country with a history of mining as well as a good infrastructure and it is 1000 kilometers east of Miami. We have an aggressive and experienced management team and board of directors. We have a significant potential to finally develop a large-scale deposit on our 930 square kilometers of exploration ground. We expect to have the potential to significantly increase our share price.” disclaimers |
|
|
|
To view Releases highlight & left click on the company name!
|
|
