Lac Herbin sets Alexis shares on fire

The hype surrounding Alexis Minerals‘ (AMC-V) Lac Herbin drill results continued today with the company’s first ever conference call and its share price peaking at $1.20 compared to 58 two days ago.

On a volume of about 11.8 million, the stock settled down by mid-afternoon, closing at $1.10.

A new intersection had a grade of 35.42 grams gold per tonne over 9.2 metres at a 300-metre depth (80 metres below any past drilling in the area). That intersection included 41.93 grams gold per tonne over 7.7 metres and 231 grams gold over 1.2 metres.

The company is awaiting results from a second hole, 60 metres from the first, with a strongly mineralized 12.5-metre intersection that had a predominance of visible gold. The new zone parallels one of the principal ore bodies in the current resource.

Chairman Stan Bharti said this was one of the best discoveries he’s seen at an existing gold camp.

“You can see this is not a one-hole wonder,” he said. “What’s encouraging is that you are seeing a system developing here.”

Earlier this month, measured and indicated resources were increased to 495,000 tonnes grading 7.83 grams gold per tonne or about 125,000 oz. of gold. Lac Herbin’s inferred resource was upgraded to 678,000 tonnes at 7.69 grams gold per tonne — an additional 167,000 oz. of gold.

Lac Herbin, 100% owned by Alexis, is next to the past producing Ferderber and Dumont mines, near Val d’Or, Que. The style of mineralization at Lac Herbin is not the patchy pyrite that has typically been seen at Ferderber and Dumont, the company reported. Instead, a very fine-grained pyrite is present throughout the structure, with consistent grades outside of the high peaks associated with the visible gold.

By the end of March, 445 metres of ramping, 1,180 metres of raising and drifting and 8,000 metres of diamond drilling will be completed for this phase of exploration.

Lac Herbin is 1.8 km from the 1,400-tonne-per-day Aurbel gold mill, which it recently purchased. Alexis plans to start production by the end of this year at Lac Herbin, shipping 500 tonnes per day to Aurbel. In 2008, the nearby Lac Pelletier deposit in Rouyn Noranda will begin producing an additional 600 to 700 tonnes for the mill.