With prospects looking up, miners go for gold

As prices improve, firms scramble to develop sites

MANILA, Philippines – Prospects of mining firms are looking up as the price of gold continues to improve, according to government and company officials.

“Gold is the most viable of all the precious metals now,” Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) director Horacio Ramos said in an interview. “I can understand why mining companies are very bullish to get their hands on a gold find.”

Gold currently sells for about $939 an ounce.

A company working to develop its gold project fast is Eldore Mining Corp., which has a lease for the Nalesbitan gold mine in Labo, Camarines Norte.

The company is raising $7 million to develop the mine site and build a processing plant for producing gold bullion.

According to a company official, Nalesbitan has potential gold resource of 493,000 ounces.

Australia-listed Royalco Resources Ltd., meanwhile, is set to spend $1 million a year for each of its gold-copper projects in the country. These are located in Benguet, Cebu and Nueva Vizcaya.

“We’re spending at least $1 million per project, but we can always add more if we find data that could lead us to a gold find. We’re funding our projects ourselves. Unlike other companies, we have royalties from agreements we have back in Australia,” Royalco Phils. Inc. country manager Joey Nelson R. Ayson said.

He added the company was earning as much as $5 million from mining royalties, “enough to fund our current activities.”

Also, Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) is set to conduct a $74-million feasibility study to further evaluate the Tampakan copper-gold project near General Santos City after getting formal investor approval.

The partners in the Tampakan project are Switzerland’s Xstrata Copper (62.5 percent) through local unit SMI, Indophil Resources NL (34.23 percent) and Alsons Corp. (3.27 percent).

SMI has already signed up Bechtel to be the lead engineer for the $74-million study which will be submitted to the government by the second quarter of 2010.–Riza T. Olchondra, Philippine Daily Inquirer