Minco has commenced a new exploration initiative in the North Pennine Orefield located in the northern English counties of Cumbria, Northumberland and Durham. Minco has completed 5,800 metres of exploration drilling to date centred around the historical mining town of Nenthead.

Exploration is focused on the search for stratiform, replacement-style zinc and lead deposits in the unexplored, more massive limestone formations of the basal Carboniferous stratigraphy. There is significant untested potential for such mineralization approximately 300-400m below previous, adit-accessed workings, and such deposits could be significantly larger than any previously discovered.

Specific exploration targets have already been identified by Minco and initial exploration drilling has focussed on defining strataform mineralization in dseveral target horizons at the Scaleburn, Coalcleugh, Nentsbury, and Gudhamgill mines between 50 and 500 metres depth.

The Buchans Mine operated from 1928 to 1984 and was regarded as one of Canada's richest base metal mines and is reported to have produced about 16 million tonnes of high grade zinc, lead and copper over that period. The Lundberg deposit is a stockwork-type VMS deposit surrounding and extending from the old Buchans mine, containing lower grade zinc, copper, lead and minor silver, which was identified by Buchans in a review of the historical archives of the old Buchans mine and upon which Buchans Minerals Corp has reported an Inferred Resource of 22.21 million tonnes averaging grades of 1.62% zinc, 0.69% lead, 0.38% copper and 5.81 g/t silver.

In August 2011, a positive Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) was completed on the Lundberg project by Wardrop Engineering, based on a 5,000 tonne per day open pit mining and milling operation over a 10 year mine life. The PEA is based on Inferred Mineral Resources, which are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. Wardrop has recommended a number of programs to optimize and improve the Lundberg project to move it towards completion of a pre-feasibility study.

Minco has completed a comprehensive metallurgical test program on the Lundberg deposit carried out by SGS Canada Inc., at its laboratories in Lakefield Ontario (Lakefield). The test program focused on determining the recoveries and concentrate grades for years 1-3 and years 4-8 of the operation. The locked cycle tests (LCT) for this programme demonstrated that saleable concentrates can be produced for all three primary metals, although the copper concentrate grades were lower than the optimum concentrate grade for international markets.

In addition to the flotation testwork, the Company carried out a series of pre flotation feed upgrade tests, aimed at upgrading the feed prior to grinding and flotation, using both Optical Sorting (X-ray, or “XRT”) and Dense Media Separation; (“DMS”).  Both the XRT sorting and DMS techniques indicate that significant mass could be rejected prior to grinding and flotation, with minimal loss of metal content and subsequent upgrading of feed grades to the flotation circuit, leading to improved recoveries.

Minco is now expanding the scope of the project to include an internal economic scoping study to determine if three satellite deposits in the region can positively contribute to a central milling facility at Lundberg.  This internal economic scoping study will involve completing new whittle open pit shell designs for the Lundberg open pit and underground mine plans for the Bobbys Pond deposit (100%), Daniels Pond deposit (100%) and Tulks Hill deposit (49%).

Should this internal economic analysis indicate the satellite deposits could enhance the overall economics, then detailed mine plans will be completed for each satellite deposit and further metallurgical tests performed to determine if the satellite deposit ores can be successfully incorporated, either by blending or campaign processing at the proposed Lundberg processing facility.

Ireland - Minco is also engaged in zinc-lead exploration in Ireland, adjacent to the Galmoy and Tara mines and also holds a 2% NSR royalty on the Curraghinalt gold deposit located near Omagh, in Northern Ireland which is being explored by Dalradian Resources Inc.