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Sacre-Coeur Minerals

Sacre-Coeur Minerals: Million Mountain and some more

Sacre-Coeur is a South American-focused mineral exploration company. I would be willing to bet that most investors, given three attempts at guessing which country Sacre-Coeur operates in, would be wide of the mark. Think “South America and mineral exploration” and countries such as “…Brazil?” “…Chile?” and “…Argentina?” - naturally come to mind …but you would be wrong! If you think the name “Sacre-Coeur Minerals” contains a clue, then French Guiana springs to mind …and you would be warm! Sacre-Coeur Mining is focusing its exploration efforts on South America’s only former British colony - Guyana.

Guyana is endowed with bauxite, gold and diamonds, and foreign mining interests have included Alcoa and Alcan, and now include the Nanchuan Minerals Group (also know as Bosai Minerals), IAMGOLD (TSX: IMG), Newmont Mining via interests in StrataGold (TSX: SGV) and ValGold (TSX: VAL), Guyana Goldfields (TSX: GUY) in a joint venture with Aranka Gold Inc (TSX: ARK), Garrison International (TSX: GAU) - as well as Sacre-Coeur Mining.

Guyana is a small country bordered by Brazil, Suriname, Venezuela and the Atlantic Ocean, and it is the only country in South America that has English as its official language. As a former British colony and member of the Commonwealth, Guyana operates in a legal and commercial framework based on British Common Law, it has a pro-mining government, tenure is secure and the country has a long history as a gold producer. Geologically speaking, Guyana sits on the Guyana Shield, which was part of the West African Craton until the Atlantic Ocean opened about 115 million years ago. This is significant because West Africa is well known for being a productive gold, diamond and industrial metals mining region.


Sacre-Coeur Mining is headed up by Irwin Olian Junior, whose curriculum vitae records an incredible career since completing an economics degree at Princeton University - followed by a law degree from Harvard. Mr. Olian moved from senior attorney for Warner Bros. to V.P for Bear Stearns before co-founding North America Scientific (NASDAQ: NASI). Finally, in 2003, he channelled his energy to the mining sector, setting up Pan African Mining Corp and Sacre-Coeur; both TSX listed companies with considerable exploration acreage in Madagascar, and two companies that have performed well since IPO. Not surprisingly, Mr. Olian knows how to surround himself with high quality people, and the rest of the senior management and directors of the company bring a mix of mining, geological exploration and financial experience to the table, giving the Company a well-rounded weighting.

Sacre-Coeur has about 850 square miles of mineral concessions in Guyana, which are prospective for gold and alluvial diamonds- and of the company’s four gold prospects and three gold and diamond prospects, it is the gold prospective Million Mountain Property that has the attention of investors. The ground around Million Mountain isn’t a stranger to gold mining – the old Aremu Mine is twenty five kilometres to the north-east and the old Peters Mine is only six kilometres to the south-west, and both of these mines were operational between 1900-1915. Since 1915, prospectors and miners have come and gone at Million Mountain, and historical drilling has generated a pre- NI 43-101 resource of approximately 1.45 million tonnes of ore at 4.97 grams of gold per tonne. (For the uninitiated, National Instrument 43-101 is a mineral resource classification that defines the standards of disclosure for mineral projects, for Canadian securities administrators.)

This is where Sacre-Coeur stepped in, having raised capital to pick up where the historical drilling left off, and to date the results have been very encouraging. Since February 2006, numerous drilling campaigns have turned up wide, low-grade intercepts including hole MM7507, which drilled 106 metres grading 1.36 grams per tonne from 52 metres down hole. There are plenty of additional drill cores similar to MM7507 - the most recent results released just a few weeks ago, from a step out hole 250 metres south of previous drilling, which returned 93 metres grading 0.81 grams per tonne. The key to understanding the Million Mountain project is probably not the intermittent high-grade results that show up from quartz veins, but the consistent near-surface relatively low-but-economic grades that keep-on keeping-on showing up.


At Million Mountain, the company hopes to develop a low-cost open pit mine-able ore resource as soon as possible and, through its ongoing drill programme, it is succeeding in extending the known ore zone. The company hopes to release a National Instrument 43-101 compliant, independent Resource Estimate for Million Mountain within the next three months, which the company hopes will be around one million ounces of gold. An independent resource estimate of this magnitude - given the thick layer of continuous near-surface mineralisation and the consistent grades reported so far - would put Sacre-Coeur in a position to compare the Million Mountain project with many open pit gold mines currently in operation – implying that the company could be deserving a higher market capitalisation.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sacre-Coeur has been busy with a trenching programme on another project in Guyana …and down at the Northwest Project, initial results are promising! Recent results tend to confirm the high-grade soil samples reported in September 2007, such as a trench with 12 metres averaging 7.00 grams per tonne gold, with a vein showing a grade of 188.92 grams per tonne gold. The most recent programme and assays reveal a system of closely spaced veins over an area of 1200 by 350 metres with visible gold observed in some trenches, and the rock between the veins also appears to be mineralised. The company plans to start core drilling on this project by the end of March 2008 and an independent technical report is already being prepared.


Recent drill results at Million Mountain have helped support the company’s share price in difficult stock market conditions, plus the ongoing vigorous bull market in gold metal has yet to make a big impression on exploration and development gold equities. However, the company was able to boost its coffers from the exercise of warrants, issued at the initial fundraising, which brought in a further C$5.3 million, bringing the cash reserves to C$8.4 million in November. That should be more than ample to cover all of this year’s anticipated exploration activities at Million Mountain and the Northwest Project, and still leave quite a bit over.

The big question is “how much gold does Sacre-Coeur have at Million Mountain now?” That question will be answered soon, as the company awaits its maiden NI 43-101 resource estimate. One thing seems for certain, whatever this first resource estimate turns out to be – it will be built upon. Step out drilling and trenching has highlighted that there is plenty of prospectivity to keep Sacre-Coeur busy drilling at Million Mountain for a very long time. So if Million Mountain doesn’t have a resource estimate of a million ounces of gold within the next couple of months, no one need eat their hat. It looks like Million Mountain’s magic million ounces is just a question of time.

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