Wallbridge Mining Company Limited - Lonmin Plc JV

Projects Overview Sudbury Properties Xstrata Nickel JV Impala Parkin JV Lonmin Plc JV North Range Project Rogers Creek Property Duluth Metals Project Photos

Lonmin plc Joint Venture
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Seven properties covering approximately 220 square kilometres around the Sudbury Basin were explored in 2009 under Wallbridge's Sudbury Camp Joint Venture ("SCJV") with Lonmin Plc. The Company entered into the Sudbury Camp Joint Venture agreement with Lonmin Plc ("Lonmin") on January 14, 2002. Under terms of the Joint Venture, Lonmin earns a 50% interest in any property at the point at which an Indicated Resource is established on that property. Lonmin then has the option to earn an additional 15% interest by funding work through completion of a feasibility study and securing the Wallbridge portion of financing through to commercial production.

The SCJV was restructured in 2006 to create a more focused expenditure effort on seven projects.

The restructuring of the SCJV, which formerly covered 18 of Wallbridge's properties in Sudbury reduced the number of properties in the Joint Venture to seven, and committed the partners to a US$1.050 million summer exploration program for the period from April 1, 2006 to September 30, 2006.

Under the terms of the amendment, Lonmin will be required to commit to expenditures of at least US$1.0 million per year in order to earn its right to a 50% interest in any joint venture property at such time an Indicated Resource is declared.

The amendment also provides Wallbridge with the opportunity to fund expenditures in excess of Lonmin's minimum commitment up to Indicated Resource stage. Lonmin's interest at the Indicated Resource stage will be reduced pro-rata to the extent that Wallbridge has contributed to the exploration program on a particular property. Lonmin can buy back the Wallbridge interest when an Indicated Resource has been declared.

Project funding for the SCJV in 2007 totaled C$2.1 million with Lonmin contributing C$1.22 million and Wallbridge contributing C$0.88 million.

In 2008 Wallbridge's Sudbury Camp Joint Venture "SCJV" with Lonmin Plc continued into its sixth year with an aggressive $3.39 million exploration program. Seven properties covering approximately 220 km2 around the Sudbury Basin were explored with a variety of geophysical tools and 2,937.5 m of diamond drilling. Lonmin Plc can earn a 50% interest in any property at the point at which an Indicated Resource is established on that property with the option to earn an additional 15% interest by funding work through completion of a feasibility study and securing the Wallbridge portion of financing through to commercial production.

Trill Figure
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The Trill property covers a 9.5 kilometre strikelength of footwall on the western margin of the SIC. Exploration in 2006 was focused on locating extensions to the mineralized Trill Offset Dyke discovered in 2005. Offset dykes are highly prospective geological targets as demonstrated by Copper Cliff Offset Dyke, which is mineralized along a 14 km strike-length. During the course of detailed and regional mapping and prospecting programs, spectacular outcrops of Sudbury Breccia were found south of the Trill Offset Dyke in the area of a single point gravity anomaly.

Drilling in 2008 and mid-2009 targeted a 100-200 m wide,east-west structural corridor and demonstrated that it contained the mineralized Trill Offset Dyke but somewhat south of previously interpreted locations. Surface geophysical surveys and drilling of geological and geophysical targets will begin in this part of the Trill property early in 2010.

Skynner Cross Section
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The Skynner Lake property covers 762 hectares in the East Range footwall of the Sudbury Basin between FNX's Podolsky Project and Wallbridge's Frost Lake property. Numerous discoveries have been made on the East Range including CVRD Inco's mined out Whistle deposit, the Victor,Victor Deep and Capre Lake sulphide deposits, and FNX's Podolsky and Xstrata Nickel's Nickel Rim South projects, both of which are under development and will be in production by 2009.The extension of the Skynner Lake breccia belt hosts the new high grade Cu-PGE zone as announced on the CVRD Inco-Lonmin joint venture property to the south-east.

Previous work on the Skynner Lake property identified a large belt of favourable Sudbury Breccia within 500-1,000 metres of the SIC contact that is prospective for footwall-style Cu-PGE mineralization. The belt shows extensive alteration including partial melting and recrystallization of Sudbury Breccia along with pathfinder element enrichments. On the Skynner Lake property, the belt has been mapped at surface over a width of 50-200 meters and over a north-south strike-length of roughly 4 kilometres. Outcrop mapping shows that the breccia belt continues southward onto Wallbridge's Frost Lake property, which hosts the Amy Lake Cu-PGE zone in the Capre/ Amy Lake area. Drilling on the breccia belt has been limited largely to within several hundred metres of the surface and the zone is, for the most part, untested below 250 metres depth.This breccia belt appears to extend onto the CVRD Inco-Lonmin Capre Lake joint venture property where the joint venture partners recently announced the discovery of high grade Cu-PGE mineralization in massive chalcopyrite veins and vein stockworks surrounded by a zone of disseminated, low-sulphide mineralization with moderate to high PGE grades.

The similarities between belts of Sudbury Breccia on the Skynner Lake property and those hosting mineralization elsewhere in the Sudbury Mining Camp (McCreedy East 153, Strathcona Deep Cu, Levack Footwall) are striking and include a similar scale, distance and orientation relative to the SIC contact and pathfinder element enrichments.Although the northern Skynner Lake block has only been explored by drilling within the top several hundred metres, the breccia belt in the southern block has only recently been identified by surface mapping and no drilling has been completed to date.

Drilling results from the testing of deep geophysical anomalies on the Skynner Lake south claim block supported new ideas about the orientation of structures that host footwall mineralization along the East Range indicating these structures may extend in an east/west rather than north/south orientation. A 3D compilation of geological, geochemical and geophysical data along the East Range, taking into account the importance of this new structural interpretation, is providing the basis for 2009 exploration and drilling.

The Foy property is located in the North Range Footwall to the SIC approximately one km northwest of First Nickel's Premiere Ridge deposit, which hosts 43-101 compliant resources of 559,000 t grading 1.23% Ni, 0.73% Cu, 0.16 g/t Pt, 0.21 g/t Pd.

The property covers a ten kilometre strike-length of footwall rocks in the North Range of the SIC and is underlain predominantly by mafic and felsic gneisses cross-cut by several generations of diabase dykes. A major structure trends north-westward across the Foy property and is rooted in the SIC contact where it cuts the Premier Ridge deposit. Detailed mapping and prospecting discovered numerous outcrops of Sudbury Breccia along this structure some of which were weakly enriched in PGE and pathfinder elements typical of structures, which host footwall Cu-PGE deposits elsewhere in the Sudbury Basin.

Exploration on Wallbridge's Foy property, situated along the North Range of the Sudbury Basin, 4 kilometres east of the mineralized Foy Offset Dyke focused on testing coincident geological, geophysical and geochemical targets resulting from mapping and geochemical sampling programs in 2008 and early 2009. Drilling intersected altered and geochemically anomalous zones of Sudbury Breccia. Drilling in 2010 will follow-up on high potential geophysical (IP) and geochemical targets resulting from surveys and drilling in 2008 and early 2009 whereas mapping and geochemical sampling will concentrate on untested geophysical targets in areas of high potential geology.

The Creighton South property is strategically located southwest of the embayment that hosts CVRD Inco's giant Creighton Mine. It covers a large section of South Range footwall rocks adjacent to Wallbridge's Graham property, which is a joint venture with Xstrata Nickel.The property straddles the South Range Breccia Belt ("SRBB"), a belt of Sudbury Breccia inferred to be continuous for 45 kilometres from Frood-Stobie Mine in the east to the mined out Vermillion deposit in the west. Both these deposits had significant PGE contents.A second belt of intense brecciation was discovered in 2003, which trends directly back towards the highly mineralized Creighton Embayment and was named the Creighton South Breccia Belt.

Mapping and prospecting programs on the Creighton South property discovered numerous occurrences of copper-PGE mineralization related to quartz sulphide veins associated with extensive zones of Sudbury Breccia on the central and eastern portions of the property. Detailed field work expanded the aerial extent of irregular to sheet-like bodies of igneous rock with compositions identical to Offset Dykes that are related to the formation of the SIC. These sheet-like bodies are interpreted to extend at depth towards the SIC contact beneath Vale Inco's Gertrude open pit mine and further demonstrate the high prospectivity of the property. A deep drill hole is planned to test these sheet-like bodies where they are projected to intersect a deep geophysical target.

The Windy Lake property was acquired in 1999 to cover a five kilometre segment of the SIC contact that lay beneath Windy Lake.The property was explored between 1999 and 2003 with major geophysical (UTEM,AMT) and drill programs (~28,500 m) that defined a new embayment structure in the SIC contact. Deep drilling from ice on Windy Lake, Sugar Loaf Island and the peninsula that projects into the lake from the south-western shore discovered minor amounts of nickel sulphide mineralization in rocks typical of mineralized embayments elsewhere in the Sudbury Basin.

Nickel-rich, contact-style mineralization was the focus of deep drilling and borehole geophysical surveys on the Windy Lake property in 2008. Historical drill hole WWL-010 was deepened to 2,589 m depth to act as a platform hole for borehole geophysical surveys and to test a new idea about the structure of the Windy Lake embayment discovered in 2003. In addition, historical hole WWL-022 was resurveyed to sharpen an off-hole target thought to lie to the north of Sugar Loaf Island. Drilling and borehole surveys confirmed the strong exploration potential at depth on the Windy Lake property. Wallbridge will continue to assess the deep potential of the Windy Lake embayment to host contact style mineralization.