The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Infill hole returns some of highest grades ever at Pine Point North of 60 Mining News – March 12, 2021
Osisko Metals 2021 winter drilling at Pine Point is focused on upgraded resources and collecting hydrogeological data at this large zinc project in Canada's Northwest Territories.
Core from roughly seven meters or a 27.5-meter drill intercept at Pine Point that averaged 31.1% zinc and 11.6% lead.
Osisko Metals Inc. March 8 reported intercepts with grades as high as 31.1% zinc and 11.6% lead over widths of 27.5 meters from this year's resource upgrade drilling at its Pine Point project about 42 kilometers (26 miles) east of Hay River, Northwest Territories.
A preliminary economic assessment completed last year outlines a mine at Pine Point that would produce an average of 327 million pounds of zinc and 143 million lb of lead annually over an initial 10-year mine-life.
According to a calculation updated for the PEA, Pine Point hosts 12.9 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 4.56% zinc and 1.73% lead, plus 37.6 million metric tons of inferred resource grading 4.89% zinc and 1.91% lead.
The current drill program includes infill drilling to upgrade inferred resources to the higher confidence indicated category, and a hydrogeological program designed to characterize water flow throughout the host dolomites on the property.
The first batch of four holes reported by Osisko are from the R190 deposit at West Zone, an area of the Pine Point property that hosts higher-grade, vertical prismatic deposits. Highlights from these holes include:
• 27.5 meters averaging 31.15% zinc and 11.57% lead from a depth of 142.5 meters in R190-21-PP-001, a hole drilled near the center of the R190 deposit.
• 25.8 meters averaging 24.39% zinc and 14.74% lead from a depth of 142.6 meters in R190-21-PP-002, which was also drilled near the center of R190 and served as a hydrogeological testing hole.
• Seven meters averaging 6.33% zinc and 1.5% lead from 145.4 meters, and 8.8 meters of 9.38% zinc and 1.7% lead from 159.5 meters on the northwest fringe of R190.
Hole R190-21-PP-004, which was drilled as a hydrogeological hole about 25 meters outside of the main mineralized prismatic body, cut an unexpected 0.5-meter intercept averaging 33.42% zinc and 4.96% lead. Osisko believes this opens up the exploration potential to the north of the R190 deposit where historical drilling is sparse.
The reported holes are part of a program that will be executed to meet spacing criteria for the R190 deposit as benchmarked in the 2020 PEA for classification to Indicated Mineral Resource category.
"We are extremely pleased with today's results as they exceeded current block model predictive grades and are among the best ever reported at Pine Point," said Osisko Chairman and CEO Robert Wares. "The combination of large widths and high grades at shallow depth confirms the unique nature of prismatic mineralization in this camp, and strengthens our resolve to discover new prismatic deposits within our large property package. We look forward to further results from our winter drill campaign in the weeks to come."
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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