TVI Pacific Inc. (“TVI”) has been recognized as one of the most responsible miners in the Philippines after having placed the first foreign invested mine into production following the passage of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995. From 2004 to 2014, TVI, as operator of the Canatuan gold-silver/copper-zinc mine, produced 105,200 ounces of gold, 1.8 million ounces of silver, 199,778 tonnes of copper concentrate and 30,558 tonnes of zinc concentrate. Committed to the highest levels of safety, environmental stewardship and sustainable development, TVI carried out its work at Canatuan through TVI Resource Development (Phils.) Inc. (“TVIRD”), of which it owned 100% up until 2014 and then divested in part to result in joint control of TVIRD with Prime Resources Holdings, Inc. ("PRHI"), a private Philippine investment corporation and wholly-owned subsidiary of Prime Asset Ventures, Inc. (“PAVI”) which is in turn a member of the Villar Group. TVI Pacific currently holds a 30.66% interest in TVIRD.
View of Canatuan copper-zinc mine during its time of operation in 2013.
As at August 31, 2023, Canatuan continues to be in the process of completing its final rehabilitation activities under the supervision of the Multi-Partite Monitoring Team (“MMT”) that includes members of the Local Government Units (“LGU”), representatives of the local community, the municipal and provincial government, and the Department of Energy and Natural Resources (“DENR”, as representatives of the national government).
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The sequence of shipping at the Agata direct shipping nickel/iron mine.
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TVI management’s track record of success has continued with the Agata nickel/iron mine, Agata Mining Ventures Inc. (“AMVI”), which commenced operations in October 2014 and has since shipped a total of 20.67 million wet metric tonnes of nickel laterite through 380 shipments as at July 31, 2023.
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TVIRD announced that AMVI would cease operations at the end of November 2022 but has been successful thus far in completing five additional shipments through the seven months ended July 31, 2023. AMVI is a joint venture company between TVIRD (60%), Mindoro Resources Ltd. (“Mindoro”) (15%) and Minimax Mineral Exploration Corporation (“Minimax”) (25%), in which TVIRD is operator.
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The first shipment of gold doré from TVIRD’s 100%-owned Balabag Gold-Silver mine (“Balabag”) was completed on September 30, 2021, and through to July 31, 2023, sixty-two (62) shipments had been completed in the amount of 45,622 kg doré containing 60,910 ounces of gold (“Au”) and 1,357,891 ounces of silver (“Ag”) for 76,428 gold equivalent ounces (“AuEq oz”). The project is situated approximately 75 kilometers (47 miles) east-northeast of TVIRD’s Canatuan mine. Twenty-four-hour operation of the plant was introduced in late August 2021 and a focus to optimize the operation has continued and has thus far resulted in a significant increase in average mill throughput and plant availability to 2,088 tonnes per day (“tpd”) and 88%, respectively, in the month of July 2023. TVIRD has advised that commercial production was achieved at Balabag effective November 1, 2021. The tailings storage facility (“TSF”) is being constructed in stages to accommodate both the increased throughput and progressively increasing resources as they may be defined.
Mill Plant Site of the Balabag Gold Mine - April 2023.
On November 4, 2021, TVIRD completed its acquisition of 100% of the outstanding equity in Greenstone Resources Corporation (“GRC”), the owner and operator of the Siana Gold Mine (“Siana”) and the Mapawa Project (“Mapawa”), both of which are located in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Prior to the acquisition by TVIRD, GRC was the Philippines affiliate of Red 5 Limited (“Red 5”) (ASX: RED), a Perth, Western Australian-based gold company, the shares of which are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (“ASX”). Red 5 previously reported in their 2020 Annual Report a combined historical Indicated JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate for the Siana open pit and underground mine of 4.3Mt @ 4.6 g/t Au and 6.8 g/t Ag and combined Inferred JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate for the Siana open pit and underground mine of 0.5Mt @ 8.9 g/t Au and 10.6 g/t Ag. TVI is not treating this as a current mineral resource under National Instrument 43-101 – Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as a qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current. The Siana mine was acquired by TVIRD complete with a modern 1.1mtpa Outotec mill that includes a single stage SAG mill and 6 CIL tanks, grid power with a back-up 8MW diesel fired power station, and other significant infrastructure that includes administration buildings, warehouse, mess hall, camp facilities and accommodation, engineering building and maintenance facilities. TVIRD has progressed with rehabilitation of the plant to the stage that soft-commissioning commenced on December 9, 2022 and is continuing. Through to July 31, 2023, the amount of low-grade stockpile mineralized material milled has been 323,763 tonnes with an average grade of 0.69 g/t Au and 4.26 g/t Ag, averaging through the same period a plant utilization of 71% and an average throughput of 1,800 tpd, A total of 592 kilograms of doré containing 5,870 ounces of Au and 12,806 ounces of Ag have been smelted and a total of 450 kilograms of doré containing 5,124 ounces of Au and 8,998 ounces of silver have been shipped through the period of soft commissioning as at July 31, 2023. The construction of TSF-6 continues to make significant progress.
View of the Siana Gold Processing Plant April 2023.
On January 31, 2022, TVIRD obtained control of SageCapital Partners, Inc. (“SageCapital”) through the acquisition of all of its outstanding capital stock. SageCapital is a holding company incorporated under the laws of the Philippines which, in turn, owns 60% of the outstanding capital stock of Mt. Labo Exploration and Development Corporation (“MLEDC”), a Philippines mining and minerals exploration development company whose projects are based in Camarines Norte, Philippines, and which is the owner and operator of the Mabilo Project (“Mabilo”). With a near-surface deposit, Mabilo has potential for direct shipping ore (“DSO”) operations and it is contemplated that mining will use an open-pit mining method. The Mabilo mineralized deposit is classified as a copper-gold-iron skarn deposit that offers potential for multi-metal products, namely copper, gold and silver, with by-products magnetite (Fe3O4) and pyrite (FeS2). A NI 43-101 Technical Report prepared by Lycopodium Minerals Pty Ltd. and filed on May 2, 2016, under the SEDAR profile of RTG Mining Inc. (“RTG”), which holds a 40% interest in MLEDC through SRM Gold, reflects a historical Probable Mineral Reserves estimate of 7.8Mt at 2.0% Cu, 2.0g/t Au, 8.8g/t Ag and 45.5% Fe for Mabilo. TVIRD is currently proceeding with various organizational, community-related, permitting and site clean-up matters while considering next steps at Mabilo. On May 23, 2023, TVI announced that TVIRD and SageCapital have signed a binding agreement (the “Agreement”) with RTG with respect to an agreed restructuring of Mabilo. The Agreement provides the opportunity to now focus on finalizing the remaining permitting matters and financing plans for Mabilo, together with surface rights, following which a commitment to development is expected to be formalized by the Board of MLEDC.
The Agata limestone project, also held by AMVI and in which TVIRD has a 60% interest, is located in the same Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (“MPSA”) area as the Agata nickel/iron mine. On June 1, 2021, the Environmental Compliance Certificate (“ECC”) was received while endorsements from the required LGU have also been received for the project and the balance of the permitting process is continuing. It is expected that if the Agata Limestone project is to proceed, it will benefit from the use of the same infrastructure that has been developed to operate the Agata nickel/iron mine, including all administration buildings and offices, the laboratory, maintenance facilities, site roads and the port.
TVI does not operate or control any of the mines or projects of TVIRD.
In addition to supporting the ongoing activities of TVIRD at Agata, Balabag, Siana and Mabilo, TVI's management team is now focused on repeating its operational success in new jurisdictions in the Asia Pacific Region and is searching for resource opportunities that can be rapidly developed and put into production.