Perth-based Guyana-focused gold exploration play Azimuth Resources is the reincarnation of Epsilon Energy, a company which had a focus on Australian gold, uranium and base metals.

The first Azimuth chapters of this tale began to be written in October 2009 when Epsilon entered into a binding letter agreement to acquire all outstanding securities of Canadian company Takatu Minerals.

In its sights was 11,330 square kilometres of highly prospective uranium and gold properties, containing several advanced-stage gold targets in Guyana, South America, where the geological structure is underlain by a Proterozoic aged craton known as the Guiana Shield.

"The Guiana Shield used to be, before the opening of the Atlantic Ocean about 90 million years ago, connected to the Birimian gold belts of west Africa," Azimuth Resources managing director Dominic O'Sullivan told RESOURCESTOCKS.

"This basically means we are looking at a carbon copy of west Africa, a part of the world where a number of Australian companies have enjoyed a great deal of success. We are looking to repeat that success in an environment that has yet to be subjected to anywhere near as much exploration activity."

The Takatu acquisition was completed last January as well as a private placement raising $6.3 million to fund exploration of its new assets. Acquiring Takatu presented the company with three impressive projects encompassing the Amakura uranium project, the East Omai goldproject and the West Omai gold project.

The 4,000sq.km Amakura uranium project, located in the northwest of Guyana, exhibits several large, high intensity airborne radiometric anomalies associated with broad regions of surface uranium anomalism.

The East Omai gold project is a 7330sq.km greenfields exploration project comprising a largely covered 80km strike by 60km width portion of the main Guiana Shield gold belt. Azimuth is confident East Omai has potential to not only host several major gold deposits, but entire mining camps.

The major focus of the three new projects, however, is centred on the 830sq.km West Omai gold project, an advanced exploration project covering a 40km strike portion of the same structural corridor that hosts the 3.7 million ounce Omai gold mine, 15km to the east. The project was an attractive proposition for Azimuth, as it already boasted a pipeline of drill, near-drill and greenfields gold targets, including:

- The Hicks prospect - a shallow deposit of 4Mt at 2.2 grams per tonne for 280,000 ounces of gold with robust untested strike and depth extensions;

- The Kaburi prospect - a 400m diameter shallow artisanal open pit. The largest artisanal working in the country mined intermittently since 1912. Work being carried out at Kaburi by Azimuth is the first time it has been explored using modern methods; and

- Extensive artisanal alluvial and bedrock workings, which have produced over 150,000oz of gold, and significant government survey delineated stream sediment anomalies.

"Our focus for the next two to three years is to deliver a multi-million ounce deposit," O'Sullivan said.

"As a pretty good start we have a reasonably well-developed project in West Omai, where we have a starting historic resource of close to 300,000 ounces in close proximity to a3.7 million ounce producer.

"That historic resource is, of course, non-JORC code compliant; however we are confident we can bring that into JORC code compliance very quickly through drilling and expansion."

Commencement of a 17,000m reverse circulation drilling program at West Omai was held up due to the lack of suitable RC drill rigs available in Guyana.

When Azimuth eventually obtained an RC rig it then encountered some difficulty getting to site, due to Venezuelan customs delays and a long, intense wet season.

A first phase drilling program of approximately 8,000m will be used to confirm the historic resource and produce a JORC-compliant resource at the Hicks prospect.

The rig will then be mobilised to test the Kaburi and Smarts prospects and strike extension potential at the Hicks prospect.

At the time of writing, Azimuth was expecting to complete first phase drilling at the Hicks prospect in February 2011 and produce a maiden JORC code compliant resource in April 2011.

Azimuth increased its West Omai tenement portfolio in July through three separate option agreements for the acquisition of all licences overlying the Omai-Hicks-Kaburi mineralised corridor running between the Hicks and Kaburi prospects. The transaction also extended the company's holdings to the northwest along the Aurora-Gem Creek mineralised corridor.

"We have been infilling gaps in our tenement portfolio at West Omai and will continue doing so in order to expand our land position along the strike of prospective structures there," O'Sullivan said.

"We are also accelerating our exploration programs right now, and although it takes time to get equipment and personnel in place, analyse historic data and get a feel for ground, that's pretty much already been achieved."

Azimuth is now concentrating on exploring West Omai, specifically the corridor between Hicks and Kaburi and beyond. The company was able to achieve excellent results from an auger sampling program on the Hicks structures south of Kaburi, from where it announced a large soil anomaly measuring approximately 1800m by 500m at better than 1gpt gold.

"We are currently undertaking close-spaced auger drilling there to a depth of 10 metres to understand that intense and extensive anomaly," O'Sullivan said.

"This is to be followed up by another expansion plan upping our exploration program, which will be to source an air core rig for scout work through cover. We should be commencing some type of scout drilling program at East Omai early this year."

O'Sullivan is well experienced to be leading a team working in Guyana. A geologist with over 19 years experience, 14 of which were spent in west Africa and the Guiana Shield, he has developed mining operations in many countries including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Jamaica and Guyana.He was the driving force behindthe acquisition of Takatu's portfolio of uranium and gold properties and resides in Georgetown, Guyana.

The career of executive director Richard Monti spans twenty years, working for numerous international and Australian companies including Anaconda Nickel, RTZ Exploration, the North Group and the Normandy Group.

During a seven-year term at Anaconda Nickel, Monti held general manager positions in technical, commercial and marketing fields.

Non-executive director Dean Felton was previously managingthe Business Analysis function, an in-house advisory team, for Rio Tinto. Felton has worked with emerging mining companies providing strategic management in the earliest stagesof company development and has also managed due diligence and financial analysis for a multi-national business exploring investment opportunitiesin Australian resource companies.

Non-executive director Bruce Larson brings over 25 years minerals industry executive experience, including 21 years with the Rio Tinto Group.

Larson held various senior management and business development roles within Rio including with the Kintyre uranium project and participated in task force teams for Rio's takeovers of North Ltd and Ashton Mining. He was also a director of Rio Tinto Exploration.

* This report, first published in the November/December 2010 edition of RESOURCESTOCKS magazine, was commissioned by Azimuth Resources