2 April 2007 – March has seen a number of discoveries of platinum group metals (pgms) away from the traditional regions in Africa, with exploration firms in the Americas and Australia also reporting strong pgm finds.

Hinterland announced in March the extent of pgms available at its Plateau PGE Project in Canada. The company announced assay results of eight holes bored at the project and discovered a broad platinum and palladium zone, of up to 31.1 metres wide. Weighted average intersections of the zone reached 1.07 grams per tonne of platinum group metals, with maximum individual values up to 2.52 grams per tonne pge, the company announced.

"We expected the drilling to define a narrow pge layer but instead we have encountered a broad zone of mineralization," explained Hinterland President and Chief Executive, Mark Fekete.

South America has also seen the discovery of pgm deposits, with Largo Resources announcing strong platinum and palladium deposits in Bahia, in Brazil.

Largo's systematic sampling programme has returned initial results of up to 2.37 grams of platinum per tonne and 0.65 grams of palladium per tonne at the site.

Eurasia Mining has announced that its first drilling efforts at Volchetundra in north-west Russia have revealed a new platinum group metals discovery. The project, which is part-funded by Anglo Platinum, has revealed several zones of platinum mineralisation, the company has announced.

Grades of between 1.9 and 11 grams per tonne of platinum and palladium were discovered at the site.

Eurasia Managing Director Christian Schaffalitzky announced: "We are delighted with these first drill results from Volchetundra which indicate a discovery of new mineralisation which appear to be contained in well defined layers. We look forward to the next phase of work on this promising zone."

Meanwhile, in Australia, a completely unique platinum discovery has continued to amaze experts. Mineweb has reported that the Polar Bear prospect has provided high grade platinum group metals assays. Samplings from fresh rock and gossans have produced significant assays for numerous less common pgms. The results have found that rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and iridium are all present in substantial proportions at the project.

Polar Bear was taken on by Platina Resources last year and its preliminary findings suggest that it was an excellent investment for the company. PGM assays of up to 21.2 grams per tonne were discovered at the Halls Knoll project, as well as 2.5 grams per tonne of rhodium and 6.4 grams per tonne of ruthenium.

Robert Mosig, Executive Chairman at Platina, told Mineweb that Polar Bear has different mineralised characteristics to anything he has seen in the past.

In South Africa, Jubilee Platinum's Chief Executive has revealed that there is a promising outlook for his company's operations at the Tjate project in Limpopo, South Africa. Speaking to Mining Weekly in March, Colin Bird commented that there have been "positive" early results at the operation, in which Jubilee has a 48 per cent stake.

Mr Bird said that latest results from Tjate "look especially good taking into account the current high metal prices".

Anglo Platinum's efforts to secure nine licences to prospect for platinum in South Africa have been turned down by the government. An official has told Mining Journal that the government and Anglo Platinum are still in talks about the licences, but did not elaborate on why they had been refused.

Wesizwe has announced that a prefeasibility study has confirmed the viability for an mine at its Frisch-Ledig complex on the Bushveld complex. The company stated that it believes there is scope for a mine producing 180,000 tonnes per month of platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold. – Platinum today