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Sacre-Coeur Minerals

Sacre-Coeur Minerals - Irwin A. Olian, Jr., Guyana, Million Mountain and Northwest

Two of the new targets both had the potential to be ten times larger in area than Zone One at Million Mountain. The company also confirmed that drilling had already started on the new zones

Investors have been kept waiting for a National Instrument 43-101 compliant interim resource estimate for Zone One at Sacre-Coeur Minerals’ Million Mountain; there is no sign of a scoping study, the company’s share price has been drooping for over a year - and in the last month, the company raised CAD$9.3 million in three non-brokered placements. Now I’m not a rocket scientist, but when a company that appears to be behind with its homework raises a sum that roughly equates to a third of its market capitalisation, in three non-brokered placements, during a general financial meltdown - and at a time when the markets are have a bout of loathing mining and minerals - it seems to me that something interesting must be afoot!

Sacre-Coeur Minerals is not big on seeking the limelight; the company tends to issue a press release when it has something material to say…and then goes quiet again. So what is interesting about Sacre-Coeur Minerals? My best guess is Irwin A. Olian, Jr., Guyana, Million Mountain and the Northwest Project.

Irwin A. Olian, Jr. is Chief Executive, President, and Chairman of the Board of Sacre-Coeur Minerals. After graduating in economics at Princeton, and law at Harvard Law School, he worked in general business and corporate finance, including a spell as Vice President of Bear Stearns. When his entrepreneurial instincts got the better of him, he co-founded, and was principal shareholder of, North American Scientific (NASDAQ: NASM) a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of radioisotope products for the medical industry, which enjoyed stupendous price runs in 1998 and 2000. Since 2003, he has served as a director, CEO and President of Pan African Mining Corp (TSX-V PAF), a junior exploration company focused primarily on Madagascar.

Guyana - formerly British Guyana - is the only former British colony, the only county with English as its official language, and the only member of the Commonwealth in South America. Guyana is on the Atlantic seaboard, sharing borders with Brazil, Suriname and Venezuela. Guyana (which occupies a land area slightly smaller than Idaho and has about half the population) is politically a democracy and has a legal and commercial framework influenced by British Common Law. The capital of Guyana, Georgetown, hosts the headquarters of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) a sort of Caribbean Common Market - needless to say, Guyana is a full member. Guyana, with its long history as a gold producer, has a pro-mining government and mining tenure is secure.

Sam Hinds has been Prime Minister of Guyana almost continuously since 1992; before this he worked as Head of Chemical Engineering for Alcan. In Guyana, the prime ministry is a presidential appointment. Elections in Guyana have been fiery affairs, with conflicts between the Indo-Guyanese majority and the Afro-Guyanese minority. The current President of Guyana is Bharrat Jagdeo: of Indian descent, he was elected in 2001 and 2006, with the latter passing peacefully and deemed to have been “free and fair” by foreign observers. Jagdeo has a socialist pedigree, including a degree in economics from Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University in Moscow. However, a peek at the website of the Office of the President of Guyana is reassuring: it includes items telling us that Guyana’s national debt servicing burden is down from ninety four percent of revenue to four percent of revenue, that no proposed government contracts were objected at the cabinet meeting on May 13th, and that Harrison Ford was recently in town to promote sustainable forestry practices. (Eighty percent of Guyana is forested – and Guyana’s forests are way up in the top ten of the world’s bio diverse environments.)

Guyana sits on the Guyana Shield, which was part of the West African Craton until the Atlantic Ocean was created about 115 million years ago. From a mining point of view, this is significant because West Africa is a highly productive mining region for gold, diamonds and industrial metals. Guyana is a source of bauxite, gold and diamonds, and foreign mining companies operating in Guyana include the Bosai Minerals Group (a Chinese company that absorbed Alcoa and Alcan), Newmont Mining, through its interests in StrataGold (TSX: SGV) and ValGold (TSX: VAL), IAMGOLD (TSX: IMG), Guyana Goldfields (TSX: GUY) in a joint venture with Aranka Gold Inc (TSX: ARK), Garrison International (TSX: GAU), as well as Sacre-Coeur Minerals.

The ground around Million Mountain is no stranger to gold mining, with two historic gold mines within sixteen miles of the Million Mountain prospect, which has a pre- NI 43-101 resource of approximately 1.45 million tonnes of ore at 4.97 grams of gold per tonne. Since February 2006, Sacre-Coeur’s drilling campaigns have repeatedly revealed low-grade and wide intercepts at Million Mountain Zone One. These have included 106 meters grading at 1.36 grams per tonne gold and 93 meters grading 0.81 grams per tonne gold. A programme of in-fill drilling has been undertaken to provide a basis for the NI 43-101 compliant, independent Resource Estimate for Million Mountain, which was described as “nearing completion” in July. The reason for the delay was hinted at when it was revealed that it would have to exclude twenty cores due to backlogs at gold assay labs. The expected game plan at Million Mountain is an open pit mine based on consistent low-grade, near surface, gold-bearing ore.

Also in July, Sacre-Coeur announced that the company had identified seven new gold mineralized target zones along the Million Mountain trend. The company indicated that all of these zones were in areas of greenstone intrusion, and gold values had been found in geochemical and stream sediment samples. Two of the new targets both had the potential to be ten times larger in area than Zone One at Million Mountain. The company also confirmed that drilling had already started on the new zones and Irwin Olian Jr. commented that the addition of these “greatly enhances the potential for a large regional gold project”.  So, fingers crossed, Million Mountain may be upgraded from “a gold project” to “a large regional gold project”!  

By the beginning of 2008, a closely spaced vein system over an area of 1200 by 350 meters, with areas of visible gold, had been identified at the Northwest Project. Trenching had already revealed 12 meters with 7.00 grams per tonne gold, including a vein with 188.92 grams per tonne gold. In February, following its trenching and test pitting program, the company extended the gold zone with 12 meters averaging 7.90 grams per tonne gold. In March, the company reported finding a vein, at surface, which averaged 6.9 grams per tonne gold and the company was confident enough to buy a track-mounted core drill to get down to work at the Northwest Project. By the end of July the company announced that it had mobilized two core drills to work twenty-four/seven at the Northwest Project.

So there you are - Irwin A. Olian, Jr. is behind with his official homework to produce a NI 43-101 compliant interim resource for Zone One at Million Mountain in Guyana. However, he does have an excuse: that the labs are backed up.  He could, perhaps, have planned the drilling a bit better but he does have some compelling extenuating circumstances. Viz, he has been distracted by ten new mineralized zones - two of which are potentially bigger than Zone One - plus a possible corker of a deposit at the Northwest Project. In addition, he has shown intelligence and nerve by prospecting in mining-friendly Guyana, which seems to be settling down to the business of nation building and is, geologically speaking, part of a world class mineralized region. Furthermore, it’s in his favour that he has just raised a lot of money on three non-brokered placements, leaving the company with CAD$9.2 in the bank, which is enough to keep those drills turning for a while yet …oh yes, and pay for a NI 43-101 compliant interim resource estimate for Zone One at Million Mountain!

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