Prospecting Equipment

In a meritocracy, the pure, rich cream floats to the top. It’s where people are selected competitively according to merit, talent, motivation and effort, based on the idea that positions of responsibility and prestige should be earned. Kootenay Gold and its team are an example of just that.

CEO and Director James McDonald, at 46, is one of the youngest men in a directorial role in Canadian mining and boasts a track record dating back twenty years. He started as a geologist in 1983 at Noranda. Then he went to work at Hemlo where he met Richard Hughes, the mining legend and brains behind the Hemlo discovery, one of the largest gold discoveries in Canadian history. This experience seems to be the impetus behind his formidable motivation. As McDonald put it in a presentation featured on Kootenay’s website, “I really got bitten by the gold bug at [Hemlo].”

In the late 1990s, working closely with Hughes, McDonald and Albert Matter formed National Gold, secured the Mulatos deposit in Mexico, and joint ventured with Alamos Minerals. McDonald merged the two companies to form Alamos Gold, which opened the Mulatos mine that is still in production today, producing over 100,000 ounces of gold annually.

McDonald had other successes at White Knight, and Genco Resources (currently producing 1,000,000 ounces per year of silver) where he served as President until 2006, when he stepped aside (he remains on board) to focus his efforts on building Kootenay Gold.

“Part of the reason for creating Kootenay Gold,” he said, “is an opportunity to put together a team of people that I had worked with mostly on a contract basis. In this industry it’s not really the properties, it’s the people that are valuable. If you put the good teams together, you’ll get the good properties and you’ll make the discoveries. You’ve got to have those people.”

With Hughes as a director on the board, and McDonald at the helm, they began to pull together key players in the industry and an exploration strategy. McDonald says about forming Kootenay Gold, “There’s a prospecting family that I’d worked with in various companies on various jobs. I was always looking for the opportunity to put them together in a company to form the core of a good exploration company.”

McDonald and his team carefully selected the west Kootenay region because they considered it to be highly prospective, but underexplored. The mineralized belt, on the American side of the border, has produced over 6 million ounces of high grade gold, but on the Canadian side was somewhat untouched. McDonald put the Kennedys – a family of highly skilled prospectors – to work in the Kootenays where they have considerable knowledge. Their findings allowed Kootenay to stake 45 mineralized claims in the area, every one of which is a new discovery.

So, while generating discoveries in BC, Kootenay’s strategy has been to joint venture with junior explorers to help fund and conduct exploration on the properties. The joint venture partners absorb some of the risk to Kootenay and pay Kootenay in cash and stock. The stock, in this resource market, becomes an appreciating asset. In other words, it’s a win-win situation for Kootenay.

The best development for Kootenay Gold in the Kootenay area so far has been the Jumping Josephine project, which is a joint venture with Astral Mining Corp. Astral has the right to earn a 60% interest in the property. Recent drilling on Jumping Josephine reported on July 12, 2007, returned 19 m of 7.01 g/t gold, including 5 m at 16.42 g/t gold. In an interview with Stanley Hunt on Smartstox Talk Show, McDonald explained the potential at Jumping Josephine. “It’s a high grade system…They’re on round two of the drilling now. Personally, I think they’re starting to drill off a resource now. This started out as a raw prospect. We’ve got an advanced project down in Mexico, which has been our lead project, but this is catching up.”

Northern Mexico has been Kootenay’s major focus. Using the philosophy that it is critical to select properties well and then commit time, work and money, McDonald and his team saw opportunity in Mexico. Their belief is that northern Mexico has potential similar to Nevada in the 1980s – a period that led to Nevada becoming the third largest gold producer in the world.

McDonald said authoritatively, “Mexico is already the number two silver producer in the world. It’ll retake its number one position probably in another year. It’s going to become a major gold producer and you can also expect to see a lot of base metals, copper, lead, zinc coming out of Mexico as well in new discoveries.”

He points out that in a 250 km stretch, through the area where Kootenay has staked 500,000+ hectares, there have been five new mines opened in the last six years, with another two currently under construction and two more in the feasibility stage. In that time, the area has boasted the discovery of 15 million ounces of gold and 480 million ounces of silver.

In Mexico, once again, Kootenay has found an edge. Several edges actually. Kootenay hired a Brit named Dr. Tony Starling and his company Telluris Consulting Ltd. to conduct satellite imagery and interpretation of the geological structures over a vast area of land. Starling has spent fourteen years in Mexico working with some of the biggest names in mining.

McDonald explains, “He’s developed a process, an analysis that allows him to identify mineral systems from the satellite imagery.” The technology works by measuring the various wavelengths of reflected light to identify mineral systems, McDonald explained. “If you’re doing it without a lot of skill and experience you get a lot of things that are not associated with minerals…You get a lot of red herrings.” Based on results to date, McDonald says, Starling has about a 90% accuracy rate. “And that makes things suddenly very efficient, rather than running around, looking at hundreds of targets, the vast majority of which have nothing to do with mineral systems. We’re now going in here and I would say it’s about a 90% success ratio.”

For Kootenay, the result is that they were able to identify more than 30 mineralized systems over approximately 180,000 square km area, which “allowed us to very quickly tie up a lot of prospective ground in Mexico.”

Leveraging another advantage – a relationship with the skilled and powerful in mining –Kootenay’s exploration efforts were funded by Richard Hughes through Klondike Silver. Klondike earned the right to choose six properties from Kootenay’s claim package. Ken Berry, President of Kootenay Gold, says “Richard Hughes has a tremendous confidence in Jim McDonald’s ability to identify mineral projects as well as grow a company. Because of that confidence level, Richard Hughes has been able to offer Kootenay joint venture support through Klondike Silver and Amador.”

So Kootenay has the people, the connections, the properties, the technology, the land positions, and the financial structure. SmartStox host Stanley Hunt prompted McDonald to point out the advantage Kootenay has in Mexico and McDonald obliged, “We’ve built up a big infrastructure in Mexico. We’ve got a regional office there. We’re way up on the learning curve. We know the ropes down there. For somebody to go in brand new into Mexico, it’s going to take them quite a few months and a lot of dollars to get established like we are. They’ll be there well over a year getting established, just to get going. We are optioning properties there. They can have a property and get going in a month by doing a deal with Kootenay Gold.”

Kootenay’s major project in Mexico right now is its flagship, advanced-stage, 100% owned, Promontorio silver project. Historic data on Promontorio show individual holes with 1 kg of silver over 5 m, 10 m, 15 m and an average silver grade of 367 g/t. Historic reports also cite widths of 20 m on average. McDonald is optimistic about the width, “you’re going to have a low cost if you’re able to find a deposit with that kind of width.” Hughes is similarly positive. In a recent presentation he stated unequivocally, “That Promontorio, by the way, is a potential company builder. And as Chad Buckland, who couldn’t be with us today, said – he’s a broker and a geological engineer – “That’s the kind of property that could really make a company. That gives a company the multi-dollar exposure… And so I think you’ve got a great project.”

Investors seem to agree. Kootenay stock has been climbing steadily over the last month from below a dollar to above the dollar and a quarter mark.

This article is intended for information purposes only, and is not a recommendation to buy or sell the equities of any company mentioned herein. It is based on sources believed to be reliable, but no warranty as to accuracy is expressed or implied. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author except where statements are attributed to individuals other than the author, in which case the opinions are those of the individual to whom they are attributed.

Underwater Gold Detector

You go into business to make money. For most people, they want to be in it for the long haul. Unfortunately, we have all heard statistics about the high number of businesses that fold. There are some easy steps you can take to promote and protect your business today by investing in simple office equipment.

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you and your company have a legal and moral responsibility to protect your customers’ personal and financial information. In addition to establishing internal policies and procedures for your employees and your business, you should consider investing in a high quality paper shredder. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires these types of policies and procedures. A simple and highly effective way to ensure customer information is not compromised is to use a crosscut paper shredder. By investing in a paper shredder and establishing guidelines for its use. Paper shredders are an affordable tool, especially when you consider potential litigation costs.

As a business owner, you must make decisions about how to market your business and how you want prospective employees and clients to see your company. Whether your business has a fun and recreational purpose or a staunch and conservative direction, you will want your business communications to exude professionalism. No matter what items you sell or which services you provide, your customers want someone they can depend on and believe in to do the job right. These days, customer service horror stories are everywhere. Customers are looking for professionals in whom they can trust. Customers develop their impressions of your abilities by looking at the marketing materials you provide to them.

Since so much rests on the professionalism of your marketing materials and because you still want to keep an eye on the bottom line, you should consider purchasing a binding machine for your office. A binding machine is a surefire way to boost the image you convey when submitting proposals to potential clients. If you send proposals or other lengthy documents to prospective customers or partners, you should never send chunks of paper fastened with binder clips or, even worse, rubber bands. Bound presentations and proposals look much more professional and help to instill confidence in your firm even when you’re not there to talk up the documents.

Not only are binding machines affordable, they are easy to use. With a number of varieties to choose from, you are sure to be able to find a machine that suits your budget and your business needs. You can select from three types of notebook style binding (plastic comb, wire, and coil), VeloBind (using small strips of plastic), heat-based methods with a superior look (thermal and UniBind), and others.

In addition to the message of professionalism and dependability your bound documents will communicate, bound documents also allow you to completely customize each publication. You don’t have to settle for a one-size-fits-all approach when preparing customer and employee communications. You can choose to create personalized documents that symbolize the personal touch you will continue to provide after the sale.

It seems simple, but choosing the right tools for your business can save you money, protect your assets, and enhance your image. Not a bad way to start your business!

When Zoran Pudar returned to his Vancouver head office this week, his briefcase contained lots of good news about the ongoing exploration program on the company’s two prospective gold properties located in Far East Russia – across the Bering Strait from Alaska. The vice-president of exploration for Golden Reign Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: GRR) was returning from a field visit to the company’s properties. At the Dorozhni property, which covers 8.8 square km, gold mineralization is thought to be the source of 150,000 ounces of historically mined placer gold.

“In approximately two weeks time, I expect to receive assay results for samples collected during my visit to the properties,” he told Resourcex Investor on Thursday, “and we are still collecting some samples from the Butarni property. In total, 18 samples were sent to Alex Stewart (Assayers) Ltd., a British lab in Moscow.”

The Russian government has limited research data on the properties in the Magadan Region, under agreement to Golden Reign and more extensive information has been coming out only in recent weeks. Most of the work had been done following World War II and in the late 1980s. The property is held under a 20-year comprehensive exploration-mining licence.

“From what we know about the Dorozhni property,” Pudar said, “they were chasing some high-grade quartz veins. Typically, the gold is coarse. I had a chance to spend several days there and focused on the eastern part of the property where we have recently completed 1.5 km of trenching. We sampled some of those veins, which in 1946 had yielded over six kilos of gold (approx. 20 ounces).”

He said that high-grade gold mineralization occurs at the intersection of northwest orientated structures and the intrusive, hosting quartz veins. Of particular interest is the newly exposed mineralized sediments and breccia zone discovered in a river bed.

Pudar says that this newly discovered breccia zone appears to be 50 by 70 metres wide. “It is the type of target I was looking for. In fact, I brought home some really nice samples, just for show and tell. This new zone has really great potential, but the riverbed has to be totally exposed and properly sampled. There is rich sulphide mineralization within the zone, which is often associated with gold. This zone is considered a primary target for continued exploration.”

The first phase of exploration at the Dorozhni property was initiated this fall. Dorozhni, one of Golden Reign’s two highly-prospective gold properties at Magadan, is located at the headwaters of Dorozhni Creek. Previous exploration work focused on identifying and testing five separate gold-mineralized quartz veins at or near surface. The veins, which have been traced for 380 metres along strike, average between 0.4 to 2.4 metres in width and occasionally expand up to 17 metres wide. The distance between the veins ranges from 15 to 50 metres. Gold distribution is extremely irregular, with the highest reported grades resulting from two separate channel samples, both of which were collected from Vein No 1, of 6,322.2 g/t over 0.1 metres and 2,678.2 g/t over 0.5 metres.

Golden Reign believes that the property has potential for a low-grade bulk tonnage gold deposit. Exploration will test the sheeted vein system within the granite intrusive to evaluate the gold content between veins, with the intent of determining an average gold grade from the vein swarm and the intervening intrusive.

The first phase of exploration was designed to map the mineralized zones and to test whether the gold mineralization is restricted solely to quartz veins and veinlets, or whether mineralization occurs in the surrounding host rocks. Exploration will test the sheeted vein system within the granite intrusive to evaluate the gold content between veins, with the intent of determining an average gold grade from the vein swarm and the intervening intrusive.

The company has established an exploration camp, mobilized equipment and upgraded an existing access road. It has built a new two-km road to provide access to previously untested mineralized zones within the property boundaries. Comprehensive geological mapping, including reconnaissance traverses, and grab sampling have been completed. Assay results are pending and will be released as they become available.

Magadan, one of the world’s richest mining areas, has about 2,000 placer gold deposits, 100 gold ore deposits and 48 silver deposits. Total probable gold reserves in the Magadan Oblast are estimated at 4,000 tons (128,000,000 ounces).

Pudar, who has been active in Russia for over 10 years, is a graduate of the University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the former Yugoslavia. He worked at the Geoinstitute of Sarajevo, Bosnia, and for several Canadian public and private companies involved in mineral property exploration.

In late Summer, work also began on Golden Reign’s Butarni property, 9.3 square km situated approximately 310 km north of Magadan, the capital city of the province. It is underlain by clastic sediments, which have been intruded by a biotite granite stock with dimensions of approximately 3.0 km x 1.6 km. Five known mineralized quartz vein zones are outlined within the stock, with a length ranging from 700 metres to 1,500 metres. Major veins are between 0.1 and 1.5 metres in width, 100 to 150 metres in length and are accompanied by zones of parallel quartz veinlets. Previous grab and channel sampling returned values from 1 g/t to 334.4 g/t, with an average grade of 21.3 g/t gold from 45 selected grab samples and 29.6 g/t gold from 22 channel samples.

This article is intended for information purposes only, and is not a recommendation to buy or sell the equities of any company mentioned herein. It is based on sources believed to be reliable, but no warranty as to accuracy is expressed or implied. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author except where statements are attributed to individuals other than the author, in which case the opinions are those of the individual to whom they are attributed.

gold mining equipment

If you own your own construction business, most likely you’ll need to buy new equipment when you’re just starting out or will have to add to an existing fleet of construction equipment. Is your business in the position to pay cash and still have an emergency fund left over? Most small businesses can’t and will need to find equipment financing.

If you need help with construction equipment finance, it isn’t as easy as walking into a store and buying the first thing you see. Instead you’ll have to research and figure out what equipment you need, decide if you want to buy a new or used piece and then talk to a bank or construction equipment finance company about a loan.

What Kind Of Equipment Will You Need?

The first thing you’ll have to do is determine what type of construction equipment your business needs. It’s a good idea to tell the construction equipment finance company what you’re looking for so they’re able to give you the right type of loan. A truck used to get between job sites will have different loan terms than a less expensive piece of equipment.

Can You Afford New, Or Is Used The Way To Go?

Is your equipment financing going to be used for new construction equipment or would you like to shave a few dollars off the price by buying used? After determining what type and brand of equipment, it won’t hurt to look into the used price. If the construction equipment is going to be used as primarily a back-up, buying used might be a good idea. You can usually find used equipment that’s reliable enough for daily use, so do a little research and see if buying used makes sense.

Look Into Construction Equipment Finance Companies

Even if you have the available cash to buy immediately, looking into construction equipment finance companies for your equipment financing is a good idea. That way you’re able to hold onto your available cash in case of a business emergency. Many people immediately think of their local bank branch when looking for a loan. Local banks can be a good place to begin, but a company that specializes in equipment financing will have more knowledge on construction equipment finance.

Look for a company with their own underwriting department. Having that in-house means you’ll have a shorter wait for an answer to your application. You’ll also receive your money faster which means you won’t have to wait long to order the equipment you need.

You can also find equipment financing companies that offer leasing and that can be a great, lower-cost solution for seasonal businesses or companies that are just starting out.

If you’re concerned about tying up your available business funds, look no further than a construction equipment finance company when it’s time to add to your equipment inventory. Because they deal with equipment financing on a daily basis, they’ll be a great resource for your business.

Nowadays there are various career options open for the youth of today. A career in heavy equipment repair is one such avenue. It is an ideal career choice for people who are dexterous, have a mechanical bent of mind, and like the idea of dealing with some of the large heavy equipment machinery used in various heavy duty industries.

There is a huge demand for heavy equipment repair technicians in industries like trucking, transportation, construction, etc., and employers find it very difficult to find qualified people to troubleshoot and maintain the specialized equipment. So if you are keen in making this your career, you can join Lansing Community College, which is in partnership with AIS Construction Equipment, one of the premier heavy-equipment suppliers of the area, to provide students a new gateway to acquire knowledge and become accredited heavy equipment repair technicians.

These training programs will teach you to repair and maintain heavy equipment like backhoes, wheel loaders, forklifts, skid steers, bulldozers, excavators, and the like. The training courses can show you the right path and lead you to career prospects, in order to grow in this field. Such programs are practical, hands-on, and can result in a career starting from $10 – $25 an hour. With more experience, the pay scales rise even higher. For example, five years down the line, your experience and level of expertise may give you a hike of $70,000 per annum.

Such courses are available throughout the year. Some of them are offered in the evenings, while others are available during the daytime. Due to such flexible timings, it becomes easier for you to adjust your schedule.

Transportation Technologies

Heavy equipment repair technicians are in demand in the field of transportation technologies. Those who are mechanically skillful, who love hands-on work experiences, and who like challenges and variety in their job are the ones who flourish in this field. If you choose a particular course or training in this field, they provide you many learning opportunities that impart the skills you need in order to get jobs which can pay in the range of $10 to $25 an hour or more.

Various Career Prospects in Transportation Technology

. Automotive

. Aviation

. Heavy Equipment Operator

. Heavy Equipment Repair

. Truck Driver Training

. Collision Repair

The skills required & what can be achieved

If you have the skills and competence to repair heavy equipment, and are aware of what it takes to be a good mechanic, then being a professional technician in the heavy equipment careers mentioned above is an ideal choice for you. Once you know you have the ability, in order to grow in the field it is important to get the credentials to become a professional technician.

The growth prospects range from starting off being a service technician to becoming a service manager, and perhaps of even being the owner of your own repair shop some day. This rise begins with the academic career training programs provided by various institutes.

Once you complete the certification programs successfully, you are ready to take off on your chosen career path. Not only does it provide job satisfaction, but the pay scales are attractive as well. While initially the pay scales may be relatively modest, it can increase substantially with experience, more expertise, and your ambition to grow in this field.