Flexible PNW jives on finds.

Near Sudbury -- Pacific North West Capital Corp. (PNW) is making some significant finds on two properties less than 80 kilometres from Greater Sudbury.

The company is exploring its River Valley Intrusive (RVI) site and Agnew Lake site under a unique joint venture with Anglo Platinum. Anglo has committed over $18 million to the River Valley project to date, and may earn up to a 65-per-cent interest by funding the exploration program through to production.

John Londry has been vice-president exploration, platinum/palladium development at PNW for two years. Previously, he worked with Noranda at the Hemlo Mine, and with Battalion Mountain at the Holloway site.

"It's still up in the air whether it will be mined at all," he says. "We're flexible enough right now that we can put in another hole if we need it."

But the company is confident enough in their finds to date to start a new 3,000-metre drill program worth about $400,000 to test new platinum group metal (PGM) targets across the property.

"A new resource calculation based on drill results from the winter 2005 drill program is underway," reads a PNW press release. "Additional tonnage is expected to be added to the 2004 resource calculation from new PGM mineralization intersected in the Lismer and Varley zones (southern side of the property)."

A 40-tonne bulk sample collected from the Dana North and South zones, which occupy the western side of the RVI property, is in South Africa for metallurgical testing at Anglo's facilities.

Geological mapping, sampling and prospecting programs are continuing, according to Londry. He says that work has led to the refocusing of their exploration effort toward the inside of the RVI, away from the mineralized contact environment.

"Management feels that the potential to develop a higher tonnage resource in this newly recognized environment is high," reads the release.

Any mines created will be open-pit since deposits are close to surface. None of the deposits are rich enough to warrant an underground operation. The grading averages 1.3 to 1.5 per cent.

"It's results-driven," he says, "and right now they're optimistic about it."

They have a good handle on the properties of the River Valley Intrusive's 12-km contact and now are working to expand away from the line into the intrusive rocks.

The unique layered intrusion presents the right environment for platinum-group metals, according to Londry.

The Agnew property is about 80 km west of Sudbury, the RVI about 70 km east. The rock there is about 2.5 billion years old, compared to the Sudbury Basin at 1.8 billion years.

"It's an amazing deposit system," he says. "If we're successful (in finding enough metal) we will have some major projects in the future."

The exploration is slow going, but the mafic intrusion there hosts lots of nickel and copper mineralization as well as significant amounts of PGMs.

PNW currently has three projects in Timmins, including an option/joint venture with Falconbridge Ltd. under their Nickel Division. The company was to begin drilling the Timmins West Nickel Project by the end of September. The River Valley property is their flagship and as yet most successful project.

The company has $4.9 million in working capital and no debt.

www.pfncapital.com

By CRAIG GILBERT

Northern Ontario Business