Sabina targets high-grade Back River gold

Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. Jan. 6 reported it plans for a 6,500-meter spring drill program aimed to expand and upgrade high-grade gold resources at the Umwelt underground deposit on the company's Back River gold project in Nunavut, Canada.

"The drill program will target a 600-meters down plunge portion of the Umwelt underground where high grade gold ounces are projected along a favorable secondary structural setting between the currently defined high-grade Vault zone and the limits of the planned Umwelt open pit," said Sabina Gold President and CEO Bruce McLeod.

The Unwelt open pit hosts 557,000 oz of gold in reserves that average 6.94 grams per metric ton gold and Umwelt underground hosts 829,000 oz of gold in reserves that average 7.38 g/t gold.

One hole drilled last year, 19GSE569, cut 21.75 meters of 14.97 g/t gold about 180 meters up-plunge from the Umwelt Vault zone, a particularly robust area at the lower end of Umwelt underground.

The roughly 10 holes planned during the spring program will target this high-grade corridor the extends up-plunge from the Vault zone towards the lower limits of the Umwelt open pit.

"The high-grade corridor represents an exciting opportunity to optimize the underground mine plan with additional high-grade ounces that could positively impact the gold production profile of the Back River gold project," said McLeod. "Drilling is expected to start in early March of 2020."

Additional exploration work for 2020 will include continued exploration modelling of the Nuvuyak discovery, Llama Extension zone and an extensive project wide target pipeline.

Nuvuyak was discovered in a 2018 drill hole, which cut 39.5 meters averaging 11.58 g/t gold.

Four holes drilled during the 2019 program expanded the strong gold mineralization at Nuvuyak for 370 meters along strike.

Highlights from this drilling include 3.5 meters of 18.71 g/t gold, 18 meters of 10.04 g/t gold, 6.95 meters of 10.15 g/t gold, 9.25 meters of 14.7 g/t gold and 8.6 meters of 10.52 g/t gold.

Llama hosts an open pit deposit about 1,000 meters west of Umwelt that hosts 402,000 oz of gold in reserves averaging 7.15 g/t gold. Llama extension is a resource area down-plunge from the open-pit.

One hole drilled last year, 19GSE563, cut 4.95 meters of 5.48 g/t gold and 5.6 meters of 3.84 g/t gold in a previously undrilled 150-meter gap between Llama open pit and Llama extension.

In addition to drilling, Sabina also plans to carry out an airborne geophysical survey during the spring field program.

–SHANE LASLEY