The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Definition drilling focused on upgrading inferred to indicated North of 60 Mining News – November 25, 2022
The northern lights in the sky above rows of historic drill core that has been sitting for decades at the Pine Point zinc-lead property in Northwest Territories.
Osisko Metals Inc. Nov. 22 announced further drill results from the 2022 definition drilling at its Pine Point zinc-lead project in Northwest Territories, moving one step closer toward a feasibility study for this world-class deposit.
According to the most recent mineral resource estimate, Pine Point hosts 15.8 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 4.17% zinc, and 1.53% lead, a 25% increase in declared tonnage from the 2020 MRE; and 47.2 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 4.43% zinc, and 1.68% lead.
Aside from an updated MRE published earlier this year, Osisko also released an updated preliminary economic assessment, taking into account new factors such as its hydrogeological modeling as well as its cluster mining strategy.
You can read the full release regarding the PEA and MRE at Updated PEA for Pine Point zinc project in the July 15, 2022 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
To date, Osisko's definition drilling program has been designed to achieve an average drill spacing of approximately 30 meters within the presently known mineral resource. This spacing is intended to upgrade resources currently classified as inferred to the indicated category in order to be used in the planned feasibility expected in 2023.
Highlights from this round of drilling include:
• Nine meters averaging 10.51% zinc and 3.52% lead in hole X25-22-PP-020.
• 11.5 meters averaging 9.37% zinc and 4.99% lead in hole X61-22-PP-002.
• 21 meters averaging 11.65% zinc and 1.57% lead in hole X64-22-PP-002.
• Six meters averaging 12.73% zinc and 2.5% lead in hole X68-22-PP-034.
"We continue to be encouraged by the positive definition drilling results from Pine Point," said Osisko Metals President Jeff Hussey. "A revised and updated mineral resource will be calculated and used for the feasibility study that we plan to initiate in 2023."
In addition to the definition drilling, Osisko has still been assessing the ongoing issue of water at Pine Point.
Using its hydrogeological model, for the past two years, Osisko has conducted profile tracer tests which measure groundwater flow and conductivity of the bedrock stratigraphy within drill holes; injection tests to model the aquifer characteristics; and physio-chemical measurements of the water within drill holes to characterize groundwater in and around the deposits.
As the model is continuously evolving, by incorporating new data from field tests, the company remains diligent in the hopes that further water reduction can improve forecasts for dewatering volume estimates for the future feasibility study.
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