UC RESOURCES
SHAREHOLDERS UPDATE
December 19,
2007 UC Resources Ltd.: Vancouver, British Columbia: Trading
Symbol: TSXV:UC. UC Resources Ltd. (the "Company"). On
behalf of the entire management team of UC Resources Ltd., we are pleased
to provide this update for our shareholders. The areas of interest
have expanded in 2007 and the pace of our activity will accelerate in the
coming months, as UC is now involved in exploration/production work in
Mexico and exploration in Northern Ontario, Canada. There have been
management changes at your company culminating with the appointment of
Mr. Jim Voisin as the new President and a member of the board of
directors, plus the addition of Mr. Michel Roy, CEO and Chairman of ECU
Silver Mining, to the board of directors.
McFaulds VMS
Project Update
Last March, in Northern
Ontario, the Company announced they entered into a binding option
agreement allowing an earn-in up to 55% of the McFauld's Lake area JV
between Spider Resources Inc. and KWG Resources. This agreement has
UC as the operator during the earn-in phase and ultimately allows the
company to earn a controlling interest in the McFauld's Lake property
package. UC is of the opinion this region could develop into a
world-class base metals exploration camp. Our program objectives
are to delineate for drilling Noront Double Eagle look-alike targets plus
participate in exploration work to follow up on the earlier work in the
area, sufficient to define a much larger massive sulphide deposit that
could be of interest to a senior mining company.
Billiken Management
continues to manage the entire program. As we reported in May, a
gravimetric surveying program was completed which identified a number of
additional attractive targets, all with the potential to increase the two
known partially drilled off, massive sulphide by several million
tonnes. UC's summer work program commenced in June with additional
geophysical surveying work, followed by a drill program to test the high
priority targets. A successful flow-through financing earlier this
year that raised $1.5 million provided the funding necessary to allow
this work to proceed.
In light of the
recent exploration news in the McFauld's Lake area, involving the
exploration efforts of Noront Resources Ltd., this new discovery of
nickel, copper and PGM mineralization in a peridotite has significant
exploration ramifications to your Company's program. It provides much
encouragement to the area, while supporting opinion, that this
under-explored area of Northern Ontario will have many surprises as
exploration progresses. It is management's opinion (based upon Billiken
Management's and our joint venture partner's longevity and expertise in
the area), that the Noront discovery may very well represent a magmatic
cumulate style copper - nickel occurrence. This discovery by itself may
very well set the stage for senior development companies to try to
negotiate themselves in the area. Your Company is in an ideal
position to deal with such interest.
The Company is
presently participating in an airborne survey contract which was awarded
to Aeroquest International Ltd. using its helicopter-mounted AeroTEM-2
system and anticipates a report in late December on phase one covering
part of its area of interest with more results to follow in January for
phase two & three. This is intended to culminate in a proposed
drilling plan by Billiken Management on targets of interest which will
focus on Noront Double Eagle look-alike signatures. In addition
some staking of new claims has been completed by our partners and UC
Resources has indicated their intention to participate in the new claims
as per the option agreement. The company expects to have
drill ready targets and commence a drill program during Q1 2008.
Exploration
Update - Copalquin
UC's drilling efforts
at Copalquin proceeded at a much slower pace than we originally
anticipated, due to a number of mechanical issues with the Company owned
drill that required frequent shutdown to repair. There were also
delays in sourcing replacement parts and downhole consumables for the
drill in Mexico. The property is somewhat remote and the terrain is
challenging, nonetheless, we successfully completed a number of drill
holes, and the regional exploration work continues in the area. We
are however encouraged by the announced drill and assay results from the
recent program on the La Soledad vein system.
A complete review of
all data required for the mostly completed 43-101 has revealed some data
gaps on the property package so the Company plans a 2 phase program over
the coming months with phase one now almost completed. Phase one
would include checking (lots of channel and character grab samples, maps,
photos, pan down slope of any dumps, adits, etc.) all of the known
showings through chip and grab sampling, and panning and taking -80 mesh
silt samples along all the tributaries that drain the "older
volcanics", plus precision surveying - probably GPS + reflectorless
laser ranging. The purpose of this work will be to tie in all
outcrops, showings, roads and trails etc. This data will finally allow us
to produce crisp maps and sections and form the basis of the ongoing
compilation work that has yet to be completed. The results of this
work can then also be incorporated into the baseline 43-101 which is near
completion and assist in phase two decisions.
Phase two will
involve diamond drilling of the high grade La Soledad vein system and
other newly defined targets. This should commence mid Q1 2008 and
is anticipated to involve approximately 2000 metres of drilling. The
drill intercept spacing in the type of low sulphidation gold/silver
occurrence we are dealing with requires that pierce points be tightly
spaced along strike and to depth. This detailed drill pattern is required
for a compliant preliminary resource estimate. Once the drilling is well
underway (10-15 pierce points), an independent engineering firm will be
brought in to evaluate the resource as it stands, and provide a
preliminary report on the resource size and grade. With the
concentrations of gold (around 1 ounce per ton) and silver (around 100
ounces per ton) received in holes MP-06-07 and MP-07-001, it is now
imperative to put in place a very rigorous QA/QC program, so that all
requirements for a resource are met. The La Soledad occurrence
represents just a small part of the total property area of interest that
is controlled by your Company, but this is the most advanced discovery
area so far and therefore it is important to document the potential that
has been outlined so far. Management also plans to start a more
extensive regional exploration program and follow-up previous drilling
success at El Refugio and El Cometa zones.
In addition the
Company is planning a much larger regional baseline exploration program
which is still under discussion and design which is intended to exploit
the sizeable 152,000 hectare land position presently controlled by UC.
La Yesca
Production Update
The Company remains
committed to achieving successful commercial production at its tailings
operation at La Yesca as one of the key goals going forward. Although
we have not yet commenced commercial production which was a target
established for 2007, we have made many steps forward at La Yesca, and
have achieved limited test production runs over short stints during the
initial startup and commissioning of the new plant. However, no
commercial volumes of precipitate have been produced as of yet.
Recent changes
involved alterations to the milling and leaching equipment and enhancing
the material flow and this is an ongoing process. In order to
optimize the recovery of gold and silver, further additional
experimentation with the metallurgical processes have been undertaken
such as the grinding of the tailings, varying the concentration of the
reagents to release and then capture the gold and silver from the tailings,
adjusting the timing of the treatment cycle, as well as the installation
of a much larger thickening tank to improve the recoveries. The
Company has been running numerous tests at UC's new laboratory
installation in Guadalajara.
UC has also undergone significant changes in our staff in
Guadalajara/La Yesca, both in the office and at the mill site, in an
effort to improve the quality and efficiency of our staff. UC has
hired a new plant manager (Canadian), as well as new metallurgists support,
a chemical engineer, and a new chemist to replace the previous plant
manager and metallurgists that were initially on staff at La Yesca.
With the addition of these new staff members, the test-work has
progressed. The purchase of the necessary laboratory equipment is
almost complete, including the addition of a new atomic absorption unit.
With this latter addition to the lab, UC now will have the ability to
complete its own chemical analysis at various points in the plant flow,
in a much more timely and efficient manner. UC will no longer need
to rely on outsourcing the analysis during this critical commissioning
phase at La Yesca.
UC is anxious to advance to the commercial production level, but it is
necessary to determine all of the variables in order to achieve the most
efficient operation. To this end UC Resources has also
retained the services of an outside process management consultant to
further assist the new plant management team in completing the
commissioning phase as soon as possible. The Company expects to
commit further funds to this process but is confident that La Yesca will
meet the original profit expectations the acquisition was based on.
La Dura Gold / Silver property Acquisition Update
The closing of the La Dura property acquisition has been delayed
extensively due to negotiation to resolve outstanding debt on the
property that was discovered as part of your companies legal due
diligence on the property (land tenure checking). Although La Dura
is still of interest to UC Resources due to the merits of the property as
a potential gold/silver producer with infrastructure (mine and mill)
already in place, it has been mutually agreed with the vendor of the
project that the LOI is no longer binding given the time delays that have
occurred. UC will keep shareholders apprised of any further developments
with La Dura.
Recent events
Your Company also continues to review new property acquisition
targets, both potential quick to production assets and pure exploration
opportunities. We are also reviewing an existing asset the Mar
property for a future drill program.
Your Company has recently experienced a very lengthy audit process
much longer and more detailed than expected. This caused some
delays in filing which unfortunately led to the stock being halted.
We would like to apologize to our shareholders for this delay and assure
all shareholders that your Company supplied material and answered all
questions in an expedient and timely manner as should be expected.
The audit process is driven by the auditors not the Company. The
Company was aware that some changes were required to management controls
prior to this audit and takes this process very seriously and is
committed to making what changes it can to insure this event is not repeated
in the future. To this end we have retained new auditors who will
work more closely with the Company.
With the closing of the recent private placement with PowerOne Capital
Markets, the Company has the capital required to advance its numerous
corporate objectives. Your board of directors and management team
are committed to advancing the key projects forward and to enhancing
shareholder value while maintaining active communication with its
shareholders. I thank all of our shareholders for their patience
and support as we work to achieve our strategic goals in 2008.
On behalf of the board of directors,
Gregory Roberts
Gary Monaghan
Jim Voisin
Michel Roy
For further information:
Contact Damien Lowry, Vancouver Head Office
#1000, 355 Burrard Street Vancouver, B.C. V6C 2G8 Canada
Toll Free: 1-800-366-8566 (Canada &
USA)
Website: www.ucresources.net
Investors are
invited to visit the UC Resources IR Hub at http://www.agoracom.com/ir/UCResources where they can post
questions and receive answers or review questions and answers already
posted by other investors. Alternatively, investors are able to e-mail all
questions and correspondence to UC@agoracom.com where they can also request
to be added to the investor e-mail list to receive all future press
releases and updates in real time.
The TSX Venture
Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the
adequacy or accuracy of this release. This release includes certain
statements that may be deemed "forward-looking
statements". All statements in this release, other than
statements of historical facts, that address future production, reserve
potential, exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or
developments that the Company expects are forward-looking
statements. Although the Company believes the expectations
expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable
assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and
actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the
forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results
to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include
market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued
availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or
business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such
statements are not guarantees of future performance and those actual
results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the
forward-looking statements. For more information on the Company,
Investors should review the Company's registered filings what are
available at www.sedar.com ..
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