Wallbridge partnering for exploration projects: joint ventures lead to nearly $6 million in Sudbury projects.

At a time where drills are idling and exploration activity has taken a noticeable slide across the North, Wallbridge Mining is using partnerships to power up to $6 million in projects throughout the Sudbury area in the coming year.

Wallbridge has the third-largest land holdings in the Sudbury camp with 712-square kilometres of land, and joint venturers are powering much of the exploration activity across its 39 properties.

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President Alar Soever says, as a professional geologist, he's simply "risk-averse," and that forming such links with other firms is a good way of sharing the financial burden in these troubling times.

"When you look at exploration, you look at the individual properties and try to spread the risk as much as possible with joint-venture partners," he says.

"Obviously, you're giving away some of the downstream upside, but when you raise money and especially at these prices, you're giving away part of your company. Would you rather give away a piece of all your projects, or a piece of the one?"

When asked for a list of joint venture project partners in the Sudbury Basin, Soever laughs, sighs and takes a second before rattling off a list of names.

He soon points to four projects shared with Xstrata Nickel, and another being developed in conjunction with an Xstrata/Vale Inco partnership. Others include the likes of Crowflight Minerals Inc., and Champion Bear Resources Ltd.

These joint venture partnerships have allowed Wallbridge to control a 9.4-kilometre block of property along the Parkin Offset Dyke, which in turn has drawn in some particularly heavy hitters.

Wallbridge is also undertaking exploration partnerships with Impala Platinum and Lonmin PLC, the second- and third-largest platinum producers in the world, respectively.

As a result of many of these arrangements, Wallbridge expects to be able to see anywhere from $4 million to $6 million in exploration investments for 2009. This would be split between its own coffers and potential commitments from its partners.

This funding will allow for work to be done on the company's East Range properties, located east of Capreol and south of FNX's Podolsky Mine. This will involve following up on mineralization found on the Frost Lake property last summer, and testing geophysics on the Skinner Lake property.

Other projects will be undertaken in the company's many properties around the basin, but decisions on what money will be spent and where will depend entirely on positive results.

"It's all about relationships," says Soever. "Having relationships with major companies is where there's opportunity, because things they may not be interested in, we might be interested in just from a size perspective and they don't want to get involved in smaller operations, though they can be quite profitable."

However, Soever isn't above looking beyond the Sudbury region if sufficiently promising opportunities present themselves.

In recent years, Wallbridge was able to snap up a property just north of Queenston Mining's Upper Beaver site in Kirkland Lake, which has since been optioned to Tanqueray Resources. The company will perform $500,000 for a seven-hole program on the property this year as part of a $3-million requirement to earn a 50 per cent interest.

A newly acquired property located 40 kilometres south-east of Pemberton, British Columbia may also feature a porphyry copper system which may one day appeal to a joint-venture partner, Soever says.

Still, Wallbridge's focus remains strongly on Sudbury, where the company has drills turning on the Crowflight joint-venture property, known as Peter's Roost. Located 60 kilometres north of the basin, this property saw the discovery of new copper-nickel mineralization last year.

Another drill is also turning at the Cascaden North property, northwest of Windy Lake.

The local Broken Hammer project represents the company's most advanced effort, with preparations currently underway to prepare for a 10,000-tonne bulk sample. While this stage was in the works last year, the decline in metal prices meant that the project would no longer pay for itself through the recovered metals.

Wallbridge explores beyond Sudbury

www.wallbridgemining.com

www.xstrata.com

www.inco.com

www.crowflight.com

www.championbear.com

www.implats.co.za

www.lonmin.com

By NICK STEWART

Northern Ontario Business