The Stability of Diversification and the Strength of Critical Mass

We recently touched base with Terry Tucker, President and CEO of StrataGold Corporation, and his manager of Investor Communications, Vanessa Pickering, to talk about the happenings at this promising junior exploration company. Terry has created a company with very valuable gold and tungsten deposits and a strong management team. StrataGold has established a partnership with Newmont Mining Corporation, one of the largest gold producers.

Headquartered in Vancouver, StrataGold has evolved from humble beginnings into a strong gold exploration and development company with approximately 150 employees, an office in Georgetown in Guyana in South America, and three key projects in the works: Dublin Gulch, Yukon; Tassawini, Guyana; and the BRL Venture, Guyana.

Since graduating as a geologist in 1989 from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Terry Tucker’s career took off on the fast-track.  “A lot of my earlier career was focused on base metals, and I was working with a company called Westmin Resources,” he recalled. “I was the project geologist during the Wolverine Project discovery in the Yukon in 1995. That discovery really launched my career and I became CEO fairly young, working for a couple of juniors that were managed by the original Eskay Creek founders.  I spent a lot of time with them until the late 1990’s.”

In 2000, Tucker became VP of Exploration for a firm that was working on the joint development of the Wolverine and Kudz Ze Kayah base metal deposits in the Yukon. “That was early 2000, and zinc prices were just horrible. The idea to create a new gold company was formed inside of my previous firm, and that’s how StrataGold really came to be.  We realized that gold was starting to take off.  There were a number of non-core assets inside of the other firm, so we spun out StrataGold, and that became a public company in November of 2003.”

BRL Venture

StrataGold has been working on a 50/50 joint venture with one of the world’s largest gold producers, Newmont Mining Corporation, which is also the Company’s major shareholder. According to Tucker, the BRL Venture in Guyana utilizes the majority of StrataGold’s employees. “That joint venture consists of about a 50,000 to 60,000 hectare block of ground that we’ve been exploring with [Newmont]. We’ve spent about $12 million with them in the last three years, and we’re just at the point now where we’re going to get started drilling.” Newmont owns approximately 14% of StrataGold.

A sizeable chunk of that $12 million has been spent on consolidating land in the Arakaka Gold District. Tucker noted, “This is a new gold district, and we have lots of competition.”

He explained, “Right now, for example, we’ve consolidated an area called the Arakaka Trend that’s on the Monosse property.  This is a piece of ground that’s about 20 kilometers in strike length.  We’ve developed over 20 high-priority targets in the area and a very methodical exploration process has been put into place with the help of Newmont.  This is one [example where] having them as a shareholder and JV partner has been just awesome. They’ve been able to provide us with senior experts; including geophysicists, regolith mapping experts, structural geologists and technical people. We have a great team in Guyana right now that we can rely on to help us put together this big regional story.”

Phase II of his project is on schedule and on budget and drilling has begun. “The targets have been just amazing,” said Tucker, adding that two other main trends: one called Gomes and another called Aviao, both have interesting potential.

Tassawini Project

Tucker credits StrataGold’s wholly-owned Tassawini Project with launching the company. “That was really our flagship property for the last several years, and it still is a very important project with a 500,000-ounce gold resource,”  located in the Barima-Waini District of Northwestern Guyana.

“We spent about $25 million, so our discovery costs there are about $50 an ounce right now, which from reading a lot of literature recently, it looks like our discovery costs are pretty much in line with what the other companies around the world are spending to find ounces right now,” Tucker added.

“This is primarily a saprolite hosted gold deposit, so it’s within the first 60-70 meters of surface and mineralized to surface,” said Tucker. More news about the advancement of Tassawini should be released in the first quarter of ’09.

Resources

The Mineral Resource estimate includes the following select zones: Tassawini East, Tassawini West (including Mine Creek), Tassawini South, Black Ridge and Sonne, and is tabulated below, reported at 0.50 g/t gold cut-off.

Table 1: Mineral Resource Statement* for the Tassawini and Sonne Gold Deposits

* Reported at a cut-off of 0.5 g/t gold.

Dublin Gulch