MAP TELLING THE STORY OF GOLD

MINE IN MYANMARCOLLECTION ILLUSTRATION BY

MYO AUNG (EX-GEOLOGIST) THAILAND

The main metallogenic provinces of Myanmar as referred to in the text. Geological map based on the recently published Myanmar Geosciences Society Geological map of Myanmar (MGS, 2013)

FUTURE MINERAL POTENTIAL OF MYANMAR

FUTURE GOLD POTENTIAL OF MYANMAR

Image based on the Oxford GIS database, showing primary lead–zinc, tin–tungsten and gold deposits and workings in Myanmar, and locations referred to in the text

Simplified geological map of the Modi Taung-Nankwe Gold District. From Mitchell et al. (2004)

All known auriferous mineralization is located in steeply dipping, narrow quartz- (carbonate) veins, 0.1 to 1.6 m wide (average 0.45m), trending NNW-SSE which is, in general, parallel to the tectonic belts and the Sasaing Fault. The veins are pinch and swell type and broken into segments and occur as parallel swarms. The regional geology structure map suggests several parallel vein swarms, which is known from the Modi Taung Gold Mine and other tectonic belts in Myanmar.The mineralization in the veins is polymetallic containing arsenopyrite, galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite and rare pyrite. The gold mineralization visible, locally bonanza grades of greater than 100 g/t Au with grades in trenches up to 198 g/t Au and approximately 140 g/t Au in the oxidized zone. Gold in the primary hypogene are approximately 30 g/t Au. The Au:Ag content varies from 2:1 to 10:1 in different vein systems of the Modi Taung vein swarm. Copper highs in the auriferous veins are 177 to 322 ppm.The auriferous polymetallic mineralization suggests magmatic origin emplaced during brittle fracture deformation in the bonanza gold-silver zone above the base metal bonanza zone. The gold-silver ratio is indicative of epithermal origin rather than mesothermal loge gold.The Paleozoic Slate Belt and the license area are known gold producer as shown by the operating artisanal gold mines and the Modi Taung Gold Mine to the south.World-wide orogenic gold deposits in slate belts are well known. The Myanmar Slate Belts has been compared to other major gold producing slate belts, in particular Paleozoic slate belts.

 Projects   Myanmar   Nankwe-Kinywa Gold   Geology (Mineralized Structures)

Tectonic framework of mainland Southeast Asia, compiled from several sources, including Fontaine and Workman (1978), UNDP (1978), Hutchison (1989), GSV (1991) and GSM (1993).

Late Paleozoic to Cenozoic volcano-plutonic belts associated with gold and copper mineralization in mainland Southeast Asia, compiled from DMR (1982), Gatinsky and Hutchison (1986), GSV (1991) and GSM (1993).

Location of major gold deposits, prospects and districts of mainland Southeast Asia, compiled from UNDP (1978b), Shawe (1984), GSM (1988), United Nations (1990a, band 1993) and Khin Zaw (1994)

Mining & Resources – Myanmar Market Briefing -Australia-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce

http://www.a-mcc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/myanmar-mining-resources-briefing-combined-presentation-11-february-2014.pdfAustralia-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce

Wednesday, 09 December 2009 Mining for gold at the predicted flood zones of the Myitsone dam project in Irrawaddy River in Burma’s northern Kachin State, has been given the go ahead by the military junta, said local sources close to gold mining firms. There are 22 working gold mines in Myanmar, according to the mine department.Copy and WIN : http://ow.ly/KNICZ

MONG LEN GOLD MINESHAN STATE,MYANMAROver ten companies have been carrying out mining in the “Loi Kham” hills east of Ta Ler, Tachilek township, since 2007. They have dug up over eleven square miles of forested hillsides, and used large amounts of cyanide to extract gold. The resulting soil erosion and water pollution have destroyed the farming livelihoods of about 340 people in two nearby villages, Na Hai Long and Weng Manaw.

People pan for gold on a rocky bank of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar's northern Kachin State (Feb24, 2012. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun)Myanmar's Gold Industry Prospers While Its Miners Die From Lung Disease

Myanmar’s gold production has been steadily picking up and could prove a key driver for the country’s economic growth, but many gold miners are suffering from lung diseases due to inadequate equipment and antiquated practices.The government once owned all of the country’s gold mines, but following the fall of the junta in 2011, many of the mines were sold off to private owners. Previously, Myanmar produced just 100 kg of gold each year, but privatization and an easing of international sanctions have allowed that number to double, the Global Post reported on Monday.But upbeat production and private ownership have not improved the adverse working conditions Burmese miners have grown accustomed to. In the more than 30 active gold mines in the mining towns of Sinktu and Thabait Kyin in the Mandalay division, half-naked men equipped with rusty pneumatic drills and homemade dynamite are lowered 500 feet on ropes into holes in the ground, their faces covered only in rags.“We break the rocks with high pressured guns, but breathe the small particles that come from breaking the stone. We contract lung infections that we call 'gun disease,'" said Wat Tay, a 35-year-old gold miner from Sintku Township, according to the Global Post.“The owners of gold pits don't care about the health issues of the miners, so the health problems are increasing. They don't pay for safety protection for us, so we make do ourselves, like putting some clothes over our mouths, or buying cheap masks to reduce the dust we breathe in,” Wat Tay added.The government, mine owners and the ministry of mines have seen potential in the industry and are now trying to pursue foreign investment for the sector. The goal is to reduce poverty rate from 26 percent to 16 percent by exporting gold by 2015, but the added demand means an increased need for manpower, working hours and medical support.Mine owners do not provide respiration equipment, and the miners are too poor to buy the equipment themselves. There is also no health care system for miners and no formal diagnosis for “gun disease.” When workers’ lungs begin to give out, they are given a tank of oxygen, and left to fend for themselves. Most are too weak to pursue other employment, and live out the last days of their lives in their huts.“I can't breathe well. If I breathe, my abdominal muscles are tight and it hurts also in my back,” said Kwin Tone Sel, a 42-year-old former miner in Sintku whose lung disease prevented him from leaving his bed, the Global Post reported. “I feel pain when I breathe. Twice they've given me pills for tuberculosis, but this medicine has no effect for me.” Gold mining is not the only sector of Myanmar's mining industry to be riddled by backward practices, rudimentary equipment and suffering miners. Jade mining is one of the country's major industries -- tens of thousands of workers are exploited, and heroin is abused on an unprecedented scale, creating one of the world’s largest HIV-infected communities.

BURMA: At a gold mine some 30 miles from the town of Myitkyina, dozens of Burmese miners, some as young as 14, work from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. The technology is very rudimentary, and the work is hard:

BURMA: This mining site, like others along the Irrawaddy River, is a concession given by Burma’s ruling military junta to local warlords or businessmen — who, it is believed, then make deals with Chinese financiers. China’s border is only 60 miles away:

LOCAL GOLD MARKET SITUATION- public notice accusing dozens of mining companies of failing to pay a required portion of the gold they produce to government coffers has shed light on what critics say is a burdensome requirement that is taxing Burma’s gold miners out of business.The Ministry of Mines published the notice in state-run newspapers on Monday, accusing 35 small-scale gold mining operators of having signed production-sharing contracts with the ministry and then failing to give the agreed-to gold share to the government over a five-year period from 2007 to 2012. The noticed ordered the accused gold miners to contact the ministry by Nov. 11,2014 in order to address the shortfall or face “action in accordance with the law.”Under production-sharing contracts (PSC), private companies in the extractive industries sign a deal with the Ministry of Mines in which the former agrees to pay the latter a percentage of its total output.“We have been using that production-sharing system in gold mining since the former [military] government. Present gold debts and problems between the Ministry of Mines and private mining companies are all because of that system,” Kyaw Win, senior vice president of the Myanmar Gold Development Public Company and owner of U Htone Goldsmith Shop, said on Wednesday.He said some mining companies had failed to produce the amount of gold that they expected to from their fields and, with predetermined PSCs and factoring in production costs, were facing losses.“I want to say that rather than a production-sharing system, a profit sharing system would be better because private mining companies can face losses under the production-sharing system,” Kyaw Win said.He added that the local gold market was fueled largely by gold already in circulation, with traders like himself recycling refined products and adding little to the supply from mining operations.“We buy back from customers,” Kyaw Win explained. “So, even though gold production is down, the domestic gold market isn’t really affected because we can get gold back from resellers.”Almost half of all small- and medium-scale gold miners have been unable to continue their mining operations this year because they can’t pay their gold debt to the government, Khin Maung Han, vice president of the Myanmar Mineral Entrepreneurs Association, said in July.The smallest-scale gold miners, those whose mining plots are 20 acres or less, have to pay about 24 ticals (one tical, a local unit of measurement, equals 0.576 ounce) a year. Those operating on plots larger than 20 acres pay based on individually negotiated PSCs, with the terms generally based on the size of the plot.“There were about 1,366 gold fields before 2010, but this year, there are only about 779,” Khin Maung Han said.He said another hindrance for industry players was the inclusion of provisions in PSCs for some larger companies requiring payment of gold to the ministry in advance, an up-front expense that could make operations financially unfeasible.Zaw Aung, owner of Rangoon’s Tate Sein Gold Shop, said the boom-or-bust nature of the gold mining business made it easy to accumulate debts to the Ministry of Mines under the PSC system.“Most debts are from the past. Now, the government takes gold in advance,” he said.Through the first six months of the 2012-13 fiscal year, the Ministry of Mines contributed about 320 million kyats and more than 821 viss (about 1,341 kilograms) of gold to the government, said lawmaker Phone Myint Aung, a member of the Union Parliament’s public accounts committee. The parliamentarian was citing a report on state revenues and expenditures from April to September 2012, which his committee submitted to Parliament on Tuesday.Phone Myint Aung said in cases where multiple gold miners were competing for a permit on the same plot of land, it was common for the ministry to select the operator who offered the PSC deal that was most generous to government coffers.“Under the current production-sharing system, there is no consideration for gold miners’ production costs and other conditions,” such as operators who were unable to mine because their gold plots were located in areas of Burma where ethnic conflict raged.He added that a new draft mining law was submitted to Parliament last week to address some of these concerns.The local gold price on Thursday stood at 686,300 kyats per tical—equivalent to about US$1,228 per ounce—and the international gold price was $1,316 an ounce.In Burma, gold is mined commercially in Kachin, Karen and Mon states, and in the divisions of Mandalay, Tenasserim, Pegu, Sagaing and Magwe, with most output coming from Sagaing and Mandalay.

Gold mineralization at Kyaukpahto occurs as a stockworks/dissemination style with localized breccia zones in silicified sandstones of the Male Formation (Eocene). The mineralization appears to be closely associated with NNE-SSW trending extensional faults probably related directly to the dextral movement of the Sagaing Fault system. Intense silicifica-tion associated with sericitization, argillic alteration and decalcification is recognized in the Kyaukpahto gold deposit. The important ore minerals associated with the gold mineralization are pyrite, arsenopyrite and chalcopyrite with minor amounts of other sulfides. Gold occurs as free particles or locked with pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite and tetrahedrite. Silver, copper, arsenic and antimony particularly appear to be good pathfinders and the best geochemical indicators of gold mineralization at Kyaukpahto. Electron microprobe analysis indicates that the fineness for the native gold ranges from 844 to 866. Present geological, mineralogical and geochemical investigations demonstrate that the Kyaukpahto gold deposit has been formed as a result of hydrothermal processes in a shallow level epithermal environment.

The remote and environmentally rich Hugawng valley in Burma's northern Kachin State has been internationally recognized as one of the world's hotspots of biodiversity. Indeed, the military junta ruling Burma, together with the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, is establishing the world's largest tiger reserve in the valley. However, the conditions of the people living there have not received attention. This report by local researchers reveals the untold story of how the junta's militarization and self-serving expansion of the gold mining industry have devastated communities and ravaged the valley's forests and waterways.

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME16/7/2015