PMI Ventures Strikes Gold in Ghana

Vancouver, May 15. 2003— Vancouver-based PMI Ventures Ltd. has announced the much anticipated drill results from their large land concessions on the Asankrangwa Gold Belt in South Western Ghana. To the delight of investors, PMI’s first set of results from the 1,050 metre drilling program returned gold grades as high as 2.63 g/t over 30 metres confirming the company’s decision to invest in property located in the middle of one of the richest gold field in Ghana.

PMI Ventures is a relatively recent upstart in the junior exploration game. The company was spun out of Primero Industries Limited after the company rolled back the outstanding 14 million shares on a five to one basis. The first foray into the public markets saw PMI raise CAD600,000 through a private placement and the money was invested into an oil and gas play. In November 2002 Arthur Fisher, a well known locally as a mine builder, joined the company as president. Soon after, in a meeting with Douglas MacQuarrie, now the VP of Exploration for PMI Ventures and a Director of Goknet Mining Company, Fisher decided to acquire a majority share of Goknet’s highly prospective property package in Ghana.

By the end of the November 2002 PMI Ventures had entered into an agreement to acquire 85 percent of Goknet’s interest in exploration concessions covering a length of 50 kilometres and an area of 486 square kilometres in the middle of some of the most productive gold properties of South Western Ghana. Between November of 2002 and January 2003, the company stock price soared from CAD 0.03 cents to CAD 0.87 cents on the news of the land deal.

There’s good reason investors were excited about this deal. South Western Ghana is elephant country when it comes to gold mines. Within a 120 kilometre circumference of PMI Ventures’ property there are 45 million ounces of gold reserves with past production of 50 million ounces. Within this circumference Gold Fields is mining the 37 million ounce Tarkwa deposit and Ashanti Goldfields is mining the 45 million ounce Ashanti deposit. Several smaller mines in the vicinity include Newmont’s six million ounce Yamfo, the five million ounce Bibiani, three million ounce Obotan and eight million ounce Prestea.

Also adding to the zeal of PMI’s acquisition was the recent announcement by Newmont that it will develop two new mines in Ghana at a cost of USD450 million. The announcement added to Ghana’s reputation as a world class gold mining region.

According to Fisher, USD9 million exploration work has been conducted on the property over the past 10 years, but as gold prices decreased in the late 1990’s most of the exploration companies pulled out of the area.

“We certainly looked through all of the results that were obtained. Typically the multi million ounce gold deposits in Ghana are not high grade deposits and run between 2 and 3 grams per tonne. Our current exploration results suggest we are in right in that range,” says Fisher.

Fisher can’t divulge any of the drill results from the other seven holes yet, but does say he is encouraged by what he has seen. Further to the encouraging results in the shallow near surface zones, Fisher is confident that deeper zones will also pan out.

Shares in the company are tightly held—almost 80 percent by management with 12 million shares outstanding and fully diluted at 22 million shares. PMI’s share price closed today (Tuesday) at CAD 0.75 cents but with additional drill results pending in the next two weeks could be one to watch. Sources indicate that the major mining companies are already showing an interest in the property.

According to mining analyst Lawrence Roulston, publisher of Resource Opportunities Newsletter, “Shares of PMI should benefit in the short term from the growing interest in Ghana, spurred by Newmont’s production go-ahead, and also from the growing awareness of this junior company’s extensive property position. Exploration success in any of the future drilling program can be expected to have a considerable impact on the value of the company. The properties now in hand provide at least 10 shots at a major success, with further prospects likely to be uncovered as work progresses.”

Robert Simpson is a mining journalist and can be contacted at 604-681-1407 or by e-mail at simpsonr@direct.ca.