Hidalgo Mining International (HMIT) Announces the Completion of the Acquisition of the Tinkisso Property
Hidalgo Mining International, an innovative mining company headquartered in Port Washington, N.Y., announced that it has completed acquisition of the balance of the Tinkisso property which adds an additional 26 kilometers of property, increasing their Tinkisso property to now encompass a total of 56 kilometers.
Mark Daniel Klok, President of HMIT, stated: “We have increased our ownership in the Tinkisso project within Guinea, West Africa. We plan to implement production at an approximate rate of 300 yards per hour with new, larger, 14-inch hydraulic dredges. We have discovered that to move the necessary amount of volume, on a commercial level, these larger diameter machines will be necessary to get the property into meaningful production. These dredges alone are anticipated to yield the Company over $10 million in revenue for 2009. This acquisition increases our property within this Project by approximately 130% and helps insure long-term sustainability once our commercial mining operation is implemented.”
Historical Exploration of the Siguiri Basin:
Historical records indicate that gold mining in the Siguiri Basin region of Guinea dates back to the 3rd Century. Although not well documented, past production since the 12th Century is estimated between 90 and 125 tons of gold. Between 1931 and 1951, French colonials reported that the Siguiri Basin yielded between 957 and 3,752 kilograms of gold annually. Between 1950 and 1954, the colonial government conducted several studies on the artisanal mining activities of the area with the hope of improving the technique and the rate of production and recovery of gold. From the study of several active mining zones in the Siguiri area, the report estimated that the average recovered grade was approximately 4.7 grams of gold per ton. Total recorded production for 1954 was 275 kilograms of gold. The first records of European mining activity in Guinea date back to 1903 with the first mechanized mining operation begun in 1909 by La Societe Anonyme des Dragages du Tinkisso with the dredging of a stretch of the Tinkisso River in the area of the confluence of the Lélé Ko River, approximately 20 kilometers downstream from the Company’s Tinkisso 1 dredging permit. Following an intense period of activity marked by legal, technical and environmental problems, all operations were suspended in 1914 with the onset of World War I. Gold production records for the period are in excess of 300 kilograms of gold. Following an extensive exploration program on the dredging potential of the Tinkisso River, the Falémé-Gambie Company prospected and dredged sections of the riverbed between 1942 and 1949. Due to serious recovery problems, the total production amount to only 59 kilograms. Exploration and development programs led to small-scale hard rock mining. Overall, the French companies produced approximately 2.4 million ounces of gold between 1900 and 1958. Between 1961 and 1963, a Russian prospecting expedition conducted an extensive exploration and mapping program over the Siguiri Basin and produced the first geological map. In their report the Russians recognized the dredging potential of the Tinkisso River and recommended the area surrounding the mouth of the feeder streams and up the larger ones as being the best areas amenable to dredging. In 1970, a group of Chinese geologists visited the area although no records of work carried out are available. From 1981 to 1986, Chevanin Mining & Exploration Co. Ltd. and SOMIC, a Canadian group, held large properties covering the gold placer deposits of Koron and Didi northwest of Siguiri. Extensive exploration programs were conducted and feasibility studies completed. In 1988, Societe Aurifère de Guinée (“SAG”), a consortium made up of the Belgium UMEX, the Australian Pancontinental Company and the Guinean government started production from the Koron deposit in northwest Guinea. Production peaked in 1992 at 1,113 kilograms of gold. The same year the mine closed due to financial and technical problems. In 1995, Golden Shamrock of Australia completed a feasibility study on the viability of a mining operation with a CIP recovery circuit. The company was taken over by AngloGold Ashanti during this period and in 1998, the new SAG (Societe Ashanti Guinée) started production from a heap leach operation on the Koron deposit. In 2003, the mining operation produced 252,795 ounces of gold grading 1.15 grams of gold per tonne. Up to 1996, the Fifa and Tinkisso permit areas were part of a 23,000 square-metre prospecting permit held by SAG. In 1997, much of the permit area was returned to the government and replaced by four mining licenses. During this time, no fieldwork was conducted on the area.
