Tirex Resources Prospects Amplified By First Mover Status In Albania

A single Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide (VMS) deposit – containing rich veins of copper, zinc, gold and silver - can be worth as much as $420 million dollars. A Canadian mining company called Tirex Resources (TXX- TSXv),, with a market cap of $62 million, has quietly acquired 17 known deposits in the historic VMS mining district in Albania.

Tirex picked up the 132-square-mile tract of land for a song, and inherited significant amounts of invaluable drilling data from the Albanians for today’s work programs.

Are they lucky or smart? Let’s have a look.

Like many junior venture companies, emboldened by surging commodity prices, Tirex is exploiting a technological gap between current geological techniques - and those of their predecessors.

Only, in the case of Tirex, the gap is exaggerated due to political anomalies inherited with Albania.

The situation in Albania reminds us of the prospectors who trudged across Nevada in 1949 to join The Great California Gold Rush, walking directly over a $180 billion of gold and had no clue. Without modern day technology, the “forty-niners” – as they were called - had no way of knowing that their boots were covered in gold dust worth a fortune.

Historic Albanian mining procedures involved sending villagers on day-hikes to look for mineralized rock. The Albanian geologists would kick around rocks and drill directly beneath the “at surface” findings. If they didn’t discover a high-grade gold, copper or silver, within 60 meters from surface, they would stop drilling and be shot dead as a “state saboteurs”.

I don’t need to point out that clearly this wasn’t the best environment to encourage risky step out and exploration programs. But even in the carnage, the Albanians astonishingly removed millions of tonnes of mineable copper, gold and silver ore from the Mirtida region – the same tract of land Tirex now owns. Just from scratching the surface.

How did this technological gap get so big?

From 1944 to 1992 Albanian was ruled by a paranoid Stalinist dictator named Enver Hoxha and during the 80s, he actually refused geological airborne surveys because he was afraid the airborne data would be sold to his enemies and used ruthlessly against his regime.

However, Hoxha did ALLOW the Chinese to do some drilling in the Mirdita region in the 1970’s where they found rich copper and zinc deposits that may have been worth BILLIONS of dollars. But before they could set up production, Hoxha kicked the Chinese out. Albanian geologists continued to drill intermittently and pulled significant amounts of economic ore out of the ground - reportedly in the amounts of 10M tonnes.

The communists were finally booted out in 1992 leaving Albania to fall into a decade long period of anarchy that made it impossible for foreign countries to do business there.

Hoxha is dead and the Albanian government is now stabilized with a parliamentary democracy that is actively encouraging foreign investment. Tirex has a team in the capital city Tirane, compiling historical data and preparing to reward the Albanian citizens with prosperity.

FIRST MOVER STATUS

Tirex conducted the country’s first ever-airborne geological survey, which lit up the historical VMS deposits. Anomalies in these types of districts often stand out like sore thumbs so they were easily identified.

The Tirex drilling team arrived in Albania two weeks ago. Some industry observers believe there could be millions of tones of gold, copper, silver and zinc ore in the ground that was previously invisible to the Albanian geologists as the “so-see-um-gold-dust” was to California Gold Rush prospectors.

We’re keeping an eye on junior venture exploration companies who are operating with an amplified technological advantage on known mining areas. They lower the risk for proving up sizeable deposits.

With copper prices up 400% in the last 3 years, zinc up 280%, gold and silver both up 300%, VMS deposits will clearly be in the spotlight in 2008. Tirex has a stellar management team with strong ties to the Albanian business, political and scientific communities.

Tirex is currently trading at $2.30 – generously lower than the 2007 highs of $3.50. With the drills turning, and quick turn around on assays expected, here lies an opportunity for investors who sat on the sidelines and watched this stock surge over 500% within 3 months of the IPO. If they hit on just ONE of the 17 known deposits – ALL bets are off.

Lucky or smart?

From the looks of it, a bit of both.

Gord Zelko, Publisher

http://www.mineralstox.com/

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