HOUSTON LAKE MINING INC.
PRESS RELEASE
Tib Lake Palladium Property Option Renewed
March 23, 1999: Calgary, Alberta - Houston Lake Mining Inc. ("Houston Lake") is pleased to announce that the conditions of its first year option have been met on the Tib Lake Palladium Property. Houston Lake has expended approximately $110,000 in exploration, issued 25,000 common shares, and made a cash payment of $7,500 to meet the first year obligations. The Company has also made the final cash payment of $15,000 as called for under the Tib Lake Option Agreement to commence the second year option. The Company has now met all cash requirements and is to expend an additional $200,000 and issue 50,000 common shares by March 16, 2000 to earn a 100 percent interest in the property subject to a 2.5 percent N.S.R.
The Tib Lake Palladium Property covers the Lower and Border Zones of the Tib Lake intrusion. The Tib Lake gabbro is a layered intrusion which shares similar geological age and rock types with the only primary palladium producer in Canada, which is located 15 km from the property. The Tib Lake gabbro is the second largest intrusion in the area, after the Lac des Iles Complex (which hosts the palladium mine) and has a number of documented PGE (palladium-platinum-gold) occurrences. The combination of anomalous background PGE values and large intrusion size is considered to be a critical factor in determining the potential to host a PGE deposit.
The first year’s program consisted of 55 kilometres of line-cutting, geophysics (magnetic and VLF-EM surveys), and a one drill hole, 150 metre diamond drill program. Confirmation drill hole TB-99-14 was collared within 5 metres of TB-95-09 where 1.68 g/t PGE’s over 13.6 metres was reported by a third party. The twinned hole intersected a similar geology and coincident sulphidized zone hosted within a coarse-grained gabbro rock unit to that encountered in the earlier hole, but returned anomalous palladium-platinum-gold values of 0.311 g/t over an estimated true width of 10.6 metres.
The recommended next phase of the program will involve check assays of earlier drilling, systematic geological mapping of the entire property, 25 km of IP geophysical surveys, and trenching and stripping of the Kuhner Occurrence and the Road Occurrence where a 1.5 g/t PGE sample was reported from a net-textured sulphide host described as similar in appearance to the Roby Zone (the main producing zone at the Lac des Iles mine).
The Company also reports that it has obtained an extension from the Alberta Stock Exchange for its Offering Memorandum until May 21, 1999. Houston Lake has a total of 10,471,600 common shares issued and outstanding and trades through the facilities of the ASE under the symbol HLM.
For more information, please contact:
E. Grayme Anthony
Tel: (705) 897-7622
Fax: (705) 897-7618
e-mail: houston@vianet.on.ca
The Alberta Stock Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved of the information contained herein.