Resource World Magazine

leFt: Felix mercedes, general manager, goldQuest, and ana marcela Barber vargas, goldQuest geologist, supervise the setting up of a new energold drill at the romero target in las tres palmas District of the Dominican republic. photo by Brian o'Hara. rIgHt: roxy Jacobs, geologist, examines diamond drill core in the Unigold core shack, Dominican republic. photo by Brian o'Hara. best concessions. In addition, the climate does permit year round work with the exception of some locations. Exploration companies must have a long term commitment and be prepared to engage local executives as well as local labour. Hiring a crew for a one to three-month program and then disbanding them is not recommended as they might fail to return the following season. Local labour may be unskilled, but bringing in highly paid outsiders creates problems with locals. Alexander Medina, newly appointed Director General de Mineria of Dominican Republic, advises exploration companies to have a "Senior Community Relations Executive who has the same importance as the Chief Geologist." An example of good community relations would be GoldQuest's operations in the Dominican Republic. Their field office, for their Las Tres Palmas Project, is located in Hondo Valle, a picturesque, river valley hamlet with less than 120 inhabitants, many who cannot read or write, about six hours drive from Santo Domingo with the last two hours over a difficult road. However, GoldQuest has hired several dozen local villagers (almost every able bodied person) to work. On the way to the drill site, I enquired how a Bobcat or a small ATV was able to clear the paths to the drill pads. The response was that all work is done by local labour with pick NOVEMBER 2012 and shovel. These villagers have no other jobs to go to because there are none. The only alternative is subsidence farming. Using the Energold Drilling equipment with its small footprint and adjusting the labour so that all manual labour is done for path access, drill pad construction creates employment for the local village. Prior to the arrival of GoldQuest, Hondo Valle had no electricity, no school and no church. These have been provided by GoldQuest. Two starring equity performers, since January 3, 2012 on the TSX Venture Exchange, in a difficult market, are two juniors, both with volatile share prices – GoldQuest (up about 1,350%) and Unigold (up about 200%). They are both developing projects in Dominican Republic. Alder Resources Ltd. [ALR-TSXV] can earn a 65% interest from Calibre Mining Corp. in the historic Rosita copper-goldsilver deposit by spending $4 million and issuing 1 million shares to Calibre. This mine is in Nicaragua, 275 km northeast of the capital of Managua. There was production starting in 1906; however, the majority of the production took place from 1959 to 1975. During this time, it produced 5.3 million tonnes grading 2.06% copper, 0.93 g/t gold and 15.0 g/t silver. It has a NI 43-101 compliant resource stockpile of 7.95 million tonnes grading 0.62% copper, 0.46 g/t gold and 9.2 g/t silver. Alder has completed 18 drill holes totaling 5,500 m in the Santa Rita area to locate additional resources under the existing pit and new zones outside of the pit. Recent hole D 914 intersected 8 m grading 29.5 g/t from a depth of 240 m, which was under the depth of the open pit. In addition, the Bambana prospect located 4 km northwest of Santa Rita zone has returned drill intercepts of up to 48 m grading 0.43% copper. In March 2012, trench sampling returned 12 m grading 3.32% copper, 0.22 g/t of gold and 37.5 g/t of silver. Anfield Nickel Corp. [ANF-TSXV] is developing its nickel laterite Mayaniquel Project about 250 km northeast of Guatemala City. It has road, water and rail port access. Exploration started in 1970s with previous drilling of 1,855 holes totaling 41,613 m. This project was acquired from BHP Billiton in 2009 for US $2.5 million and a 1.5% NSR royalty. Anfield has completed 650 holes (12,500 m). A Preliminary Economic Assessment was completed in July 2011 showing robust economics with an IRR 14.1%. The initial capital expenditure would be $1.23 billion, with sustaining capital of $199 million. It would have a 29.5-year mine life with a cash cost of US $3.14/lb of nickel. Work on a pre-feasibility study is expected to be completed this year. www.resourceworld.com 31

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