High-tech metal deposits a focus: joint-venture partnership allows firm to concentrate on further exploration efforts.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Mining - Houston Lake Mining

Anticipating future trends in commodities and staking out quality ground in rare and platinum-group metals without paying premium prices remains the focus of Houston Lake Mining.

Grayme Anthony, geologist, president and CEO of the junior exploration company, prefers to let results speak for themselves. Their early exploration work with three strong projects in northwestern Ontario features high-quality platinum-group metal targets.

Based in Val Caron, in the City of Greater Sudhury, the company concentrates its exploration efforts on high-tech and rare metals such as palladium, platinum, tantalum, cesium, lithium and germanium, and has expanded on a promising gold property in northwestern Ontario.

Currently Houston Lake is working, on projects in the Thunder Bay, Kenora and Red Lake areas searching for and identifying targets with large tonnage potential, especially those with potential for open-pit development.

"Of the three projects we feel we have the right fundamentals to develop large tonnage deposits and that's why we've aimed at projects we have," Anthony says.

Their Tib Lake palladium-platinum gold property is located near Thunder Bay, about nine kilometres northwest of North American Palladium's Lac Des Iles mine.

On board for that project is joint-venture funding partner Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. of Toronto, operators of Canada's largest underground gold mine in Val d'Or, Que. Agnico has the right to earn a 50 per cent interest in Tib Lake by making a cash payment of $640,000 and expending $3.6 million over four years.

Anthony calls it "one of the larger deals" in platinum-palladium in signing a letter of intent with the gold producer in September 2001, which was finalized in March. The project began last June with an upcoming drilling project budgeted at $500,000 which includes an extensive surface exploration program.

At their Pakegama Lake rare metals property in the Red Lake district, the Ontario Geological Survey spent two summers there, and much effort was spent identifying both large size and high concentrations of tantalum, cesium, rubidium, and lithium.

Tantalum is, used in capacitors for electronic equipment and cellphones.

Houston Lake is seeking to raise about $300,000 for a mechanized trenching and diamond-drilling program.

"With Pakegama...