Eastmain Resources (ER-T) begins drilling at Clearwater, $5.9 million cash (as of April 30, 2013)
Aug 6, 2013 - News Release
A 25,000-metre drill program is under way at Eastmain Resources Inc.'s Clearwater project located in James Bay, Quebec. The company's primary objective this year at Clearwater is to expand and upgrade gold resources at the Eau Claire deposit through optimization of near-surface exploration, based on the results of an internal scoping review completed earlier this year by P&E Mining Consultants. Drilling and trenching will focus on adding high-grade potentially open-pittable and underground resources to the Eau Claire gold deposit. Concurrently, a block model resource update (in progress), which will include all drilling to the end of 2012, will be completed.With 2013 exploration funding provided by flow-through placements completed in 2012, the company has a $7.5-million exploration budget for key James Bay, Quebec, area properties. In order to meet flow-through requirements, eligible expenditures must be incurred by Dec. 31, 2013.
Exploration crews, previously evacuated from the Clearwater project to the Eastmain mine property due to severe forest fires in the region, have now fully returned to Clearwater, where trenching and drilling are progressing well. Two thousand thirteen exploration budgets provide for work programs at the company's 100-per-cent-owned Eastmain mine, and the Reservoir, Lac Hudson and Lac Elmer projects. A small exploration program has also been recommended for the Eleonore South joint venture.
Clearwater project
A $5-million program, including 25,000 metres of definition drilling, will focus on expanding the lateral and vertical limits of the Eau Claire gold deposit. The deposit currently extends for two kilometres laterally and 900 metres vertically. Over 100 gold-bearing intersections, defined during 2012 drilling, which exceed current resource cut-off parameters and occur within the upper 350 metres of the deposit, will be added to the resource update. The updated resource is expected to be completed by P&E Mining Consultants by October.
Trenching completed in 2012, within both the 450 and 850 West zones, has also exposed additional gold-bearing veins exceeding resource cut-off parameters. Several trenches designed to test the surface expansion of the Eau Claire footprint in all directions will be completed during the 2013 program.
Prospecting, trenching and exploration drilling are also planned to test new discoveries up to three kilometres east of Eau Claire, along the key deposit horizon, where numerous gold-bearing rock and soil anomalies have been detected. In the vicinity of Snake Lake, there is considerable potential to outline additional gold resources along this corridor.
Eastmain mine project
In July, while awaiting remobilization to Clearwater, field crews completed a program of geological mapping, prospecting and soil geochemical surveys to define future drill targets in the key mine horizon northwest of the Eastmain mine gold deposit. A number of drill targets below the A and B zones, and along the mine trend lateral to the deposit will be tested as part of a winter 2014 drill campaign.
The Eastmain mine property is now accessible by permanent road via Route 167 North. Although top dressed only to approximately 128 kilometres, the road is now passable to where it meets the Eastmain mine internal road network, thereby sharply reducing fuel and equipment transportation costs.
Reservoir project
Exploration is planned for the company's 100-per-cent-owned Reservoir project, where previous work defined a large copper-gold system extending for approximately two kilometres in the central part of the property. Historical drilling in this area, known as the C-52 zone, intersected wide zones of copper and gold mineralization (0.57 gram per tonne gold over 21 metres in hole 87-11). Locally within C-52, higher-grade intervals of up to 5.35 grams per tonne gold, 1.15 grams per tonne silver and 0.17 per cent copper over six metres, and 2.04 grams per tonne gold, 9.52 grams per tonne silver and 0.14 per cent copper over 1.4 metres occur. Near-surface gold intersections of 0.25 gram per tonne to 1.93 grams per tonne across widths of five metres to 30 metres often contain higher-grade drill intervals of up to 11.5 grams per tonne across 1.5 metres.
Rock samples (grab and channel) taken in 2012, which returned assays ranging from 0.5 gram per tonne to 5.5 grams per tonne gold, five grams per tonne to 58.3 grams per tonne silver and 0.5 per cent to 9.58 per cent copper, indicate that there are four main target areas requiring additional ground follow-up prior to drilling. An $800,000 work program consisting of prospecting, geochemical sampling and preliminary diamond drilling has been allocated for 2013.
Other projects
High-definition airborne geophysical surveys covering previously defined mineralized trends over the company's Lac Elmer and Lac Hudson projects, also located in the James Bay region, are nearing completion.
Lac Elmer hosts a 10-kilometre-long sericite-pyrite altered rhyolite enriched in gold and base metals. Grades of up to 102 grams per tonne gold and 1,000 grams per tonne silver were reported from previous work. This Bousquet-mine-type prospect covers a number of targets ranging from wide low-grade zones returning values of 0.5 gram per tonne gold and 45 grams per tonne silver over 30 metres (drill hole W85-21) to high-grade samples grading up to 102 grams per tonne gold (grab sample) and up to 1 per cent to 3 per cent copper-zinc (drill, channel and grab).
Lac Hudson is prospective for gold and base metal deposits within a very similar setting to that hosting Goldcorp's Roberto deposit at Eleonore. In addition, gold targets in iron formation have also returned assays of up to 15.1 grams per tonne gold at Lac Hudson.
A jointly funded exploration program has been recommended for the Eleonore South project, located adjacent to Goldcorp's multimillion-ounce Roberto gold deposit (Eleonore project) in the James Bay region of Quebec, and is subject to approval by the company's partners, Goldcorp and Azimut Exploration Inc.
"Our 2013/2014 objectives are to demonstrate that there are sufficient high-grade gold resources at Clearwater to support a stand-alone, highly profitable, long-life mining operation. The most important value driver for the project is the high-grade nature of the Eau Claire gold deposit. Combined with simple, clean metallurgy, and close proximity to power and roads, the exceptional grades at Eau Claire make Clearwater an excellent project for future mining. In addition, there is substantial exploration upside to add resources both within the Eau Claire deposit and elsewhere on this 200-square-kilometre property," said Dr. Donald J. Robinson, Eastmain's president and chief executive officer.
"The bulk of our 2013 exploration budget will be allocated to advancing Clearwater towards future production, while the remainder of funds will define targets for drilling and maintaining highly prospective key projects, some of which will provide joint venture opportunities," added Dr. Robinson.
Dr. Donald J. Robinson, PGeo, president and chief executive officer of Eastmain, qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, reviewed and approved the technical data presented in this press release.
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