Underground development and drilling

On 25 June, 2007, the second Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) covering 1559 hectares was awarded to Apex. This completed the re-licensing of the Apex historic claims.  This license covers the west side of the property in which there are several known porphyry copper-gold deposits and the extensions of the known vein systems.

The exploration of the Bonanza Maligaya trend has revealed a new vein and splits in the hanging wall of the Bonanza Vein.  Drilling since the February 2007 resource estimate has shown many significant intercepts on the Sandy, Jessie and Maria Inez veins that lie along the Bonanza Maligaya trend to the south. These positive results have guided the underground development on those veins.

Apex has commenced initial drilling and associated work to confirm and expand the historical (non JORC-code) copper porphyry resource of 85 million tonnes at 0.4% copper and 0.4 g/t gold on the property, but this drilling had a dual purpose of investigating extensions of the high-grade gold veins in the St. Francis area and was more focused on the vein extension than the porphyry.

Development of the mine infrastructure to open up existing and new ramp systems continued through 2007 and 2008 and new portals have been established to access ramps on the Sandy Vein and the Masara Vein.  Important ongoing development is the waste development west on 530 level from Maligaya 1 to intersect the Masarita Vein and development east from Maligaya 2 to Sandy 1 at depth to allow drilling of the down dip extension of the Sandy Vein systems. The latter development is an ore drive on the hanging wall vein.