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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
New Umwelt Underground results include 8.2m of 51.5 g/t gold North of 60 Mining News – September 4, 2020
Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. Sept. 3 reported strong gold intercepts in two additional holes drilled into the upper portions of the high-grade corridor at Umwelt Underground on the company's back river gold project in Nunavut.
The best intercept came in hole 20GSE575C, which cut 32.2 meters averaging 19.89 grams per metric ton gold, including an 8.2-meter bonanza grade section averaging 51.5 g/t gold.
"The assay results from drill hole 20GSE575C rank as one of the best ever encountered on the project in terms of grade and thickness." said Sabina Gold & Silver President and CEO Bruce McLeod. "The intercept results we are now getting in the upper portions of the Umwelt high grade corridor are over twice the grade of the Umwelt underground resource."
The other new hole released by the company, 20GSE574, cut 20.1 meters averaging 5.88 g/t gold.
These strong Umwelt underground results are in addition to the assays from the first three drill holes drilled this year that included 19.4 meters averaging 15.15 g/t gold in hole 20GSE571; 7.7 meters of 12.64 g/t gold in 20GSE572; and 12 meters of 13.72 g/t gold in 20GSE573.
Results continue to support Sabina's thesis of the continuity of a roughly 315-meter high-grade corridor extending up from the Vault zone at depth to the lower limits of the current Umwelt open pit design.
"The tenor and robustness of gold mineralization we are seeing in this area just below the proposed Umwelt pit are very similar to the intercepts from Vault, approximately 600 meters down-plunge," said McLeod. "We are very encouraged by these continued exceptional results that, with more drilling, we believe will enable modelling of higher-grade material to be released earlier in the mine life. This adjusted mine sequencing could have a significant positive impact on what is already a tier one project."
A 2015 feasibility study details plans for developing a mine at Goose, one of seven properties that make up Sabina's larger Back River project. Ore from these deposits would feed a 3,000-metric-ton-per-day mill forecast to produce an average of 198,100 ounces of gold annually over an 11.8-year mine life.
This feasibility study is supported by 12.4 million metric tons of reserves averaging 6.3 g/t gold in three open-pit deposits – Goose Main, Umwelt and Llama – and one underground – Umwelt UG – across a 7,000-meter long area.
This summer's drilling is designed to delineate and detail the nature of the high-grade structure between the Umwelt open-pit and the Vault underground, which has never been discretely targeted.
"More drilling is currently underway to better delineate these high-grade zones which could improve the grade in our resource and reserve estimates. To further support this drilling, we are preparing to drive an underground exploration ramp to access these areas from underground," said McLeod.
A secondary focus of the summer drill program includes the completion of a series of infill and extension drill holes at the Llama Extension zone and the addition of several high priority exploration drill targets aimed at advanced discovery areas.
Sabina says this drilling at Llama has progressed well with successful targeting of higher-grade structures and mineral zones, three drill holes have now been completed with the sampling and logging process well underway. In addition, Sabina has now recently completed a 2,064-line-kilometer versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) geophysical survey over key areas of the Back River project for exploration advancement. Preliminary results of the survey are being reviewed for immediate follow-up with initial drilling to begin in the coming weeks.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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