Monday, July 23, 2007
Mindoro QAQC Procedures Ensure Complete Integrity of all Assay Results
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EDMONTON, Alberta; July 23, 2007 - It is timely for Mindoro Resources Ltd. (TSXV: MIO; Frankfurt: WKN 906167) to outline and state its Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QAQC) procedures, and overall security procedures applied in the handling and processing of all drilling materials from its projects, including the Kay Tanda gold-silver project where a NI 43-101 resource estimate is in progress. Mindoro applies rigorous QAQC and security programs in all drilling material handling and assay procedures, and all results are reported with complete confidence in their integrity.
All projects are directly under the control and supervision of Tony Climie, P. Geo., a qualified person and President of Mindoro. Mr. Climie is a field-oriented geologist who performs close, hands-on supervision of projects and conducts frequent site visits. The sampling protocol for the Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling program at Kay Tanda (147 drill holes) was designed by Mr. Gary Powell, MAustIMM, and a qualified person, with a great deal of advanced gold project evaluation in Australia. QAQC procedures for core drilling were set up by Mindoro under the direction of Bruce Rohrlach, BSc. (Hons), Ph.D, M.AusIMM, also a qualified person who personally observed the drilling and sampling procedures closely during site visits to Kay Tanda.
At Kay Tanda, drilling is carried out under the direct supervision of a team of permanent Mindoro geologists and engineers. The team ensures that all samples are under the control of trained personnel at all times from the rig to the laboratory. To ensure drill site quality control, a geologist and a drill supervisor were assigned permanently on site during all of the RC drilling. The geologist, assisted by the drilling supervisor, acted as overall supervisor of the operation including the RC sampling protocol from splitting to bagging. They also supervised transport of samples from the site to the Lobo Project Office. The large volume of RC samples remaining after the assay sub-sample has been collected are then trucked to the Lobo Project Office where they are stored for future reference.
For the diamond drilling, two mining engineers and two drill supervisors were assigned permanently on site for both the day and night shifts. They supervised the retrieval of the drill core from the core tubes, placement in core boxes, security strapping of the core boxes, and transport to the core shack. Core boxes at the rig were mechanically tightly-sealed by heavy-duty polyurethane plastic packing bands, then transported to the Archangel Field Camp, and then to Lobo Project Camp for photography, logging and sample processing.
The samples are received by Mindoro's Core House Manager at Lobo, who is also a geologist and permanently assigned to manage the sample preparation and dispatch to McPhar Laboratories, as well as archiving of field duplicates. Sample preparation protocols are strictly followed by all core house personnel, including splitting packaging, labeling and recording; and carried out under the direct supervision of senior geological personnel. Core samples are split for assay using a diamond saw and half of the core retained for later reference or assay checks.
Prepared samples are transported to McPhar Laboratory in Manila using company-owned vehicles and accompanied by either a geologist or a core house geotechnician. Counting and cross-checking of samples vis-à-vis the McPhar Submission Form are done by McPhar supervisors and witnessed by the Mindoro personnel. Secured sample bags are opened by McPhar supervisors only.
McPhar Geoservices (Philippines) Inc. carries out high quality sample preparation and assay procedures. It is an ISO 9002-certified laboratory and has been providing assay laboratory services to both local and foreign exploration and mining companies for the past 33 years.
The McPhar Laboratories in Manila ensures a Quality Assurance/Quality Control program incorporated in their sample preparation and analysis procedures. Every tenth sample and samples with "anomalous" results, i.e., samples having abnormally high or low results within a sample batch, are routinely checked. Variations were within acceptable limits. McPhar also inserts its own Certified Reference Materials and blanks.
External checks were carried out by Mindoro by including one standard sample and one reagent blank sample in every 20-25 sample charges.
To further ensure the integrity of the assay results, pulp rejects for both rock chips and drill cores are sent by Mindoro to Australian-owned Intertek Testing Services (ITS), an internationally reputed laboratory in Jakarta, Indonesia for re-assay. Intertek-Jakarta is the only ISO 17025-accredited mineral laboratory in Indonesia. Moreover, field duplicates, coarse duplicates and pulp rejects were re-sampled and subsequently sent to McPhar for re-assay. Overall results of all rechecks are within acceptable limits.
Moreover, a preliminary geostatistical study was undertaken by Golder Associates Pty Ltd. of Australia, using Median Indicator Kriging (MIK). This independent consulting group employed statistical analyses to carry out independent checks on the Kay Tanda datasets, checking for logical errors and limitations, including extreme assay values. No significant discrepancies or problems were noted. To provide information for evaluating the short-scale continuity of mineralization Golder recommended some close-spaced (12.5 m) drilling in a small area. Mindoro conducted such drilling and which, as recently reported, has been returning excellent results and is confirming short-scale continuity.
Mindoro also notes that its results are entirely consistent with gold-silver mineralization encountered in wide-spaced reconnaissance core drilling conducted by Western Mining Corporation, an Australian major, in 1989, and with thirteen reconnaissance RC holes completed by Canadian junior Chase Resources Ltd. in 1997. Previously reported detailed alteration, structural and petrological studies carried out by independent consultants and experts have confirmed that Kay Tanda is a robust gold-silver mineral system.