Santoy bulk sample suggests high grade (March 02, 2007)

Underground sampling at the Santoy 7 zone on Claude Resources’ (CRJ-T, CGR-X) Seabee property in north-central Saskatchewan suggests bulk grades may be higher than the zone’s resource estimate.

Claude went underground on Santoy 7 with a decline, which has now gone 135 metres through the mineralized zone. Chip and muck samples from the 45 blast rounds in the zone show an average grade of 13.6 grams gold per tonne, or if capped at 48.2 grams per tonne they average 12.6 grams per tonne.

A resource estimate on Santoy 7 based on drill data came to 190,000 tonnes at an average 8.4 grams gold per tonne, indicated, with 10,000 tonnes at 10 grams inferred.

Claude expects to mill 15,000 tonnes of Santoy mineralization at the Seabee mill by the end of March to make a production decision on the zone. The company believes that if permits are in place it can start mining on Santoy 7 some time in the second half of the year. The deposit is 11 km east of Seabee by road.

A bulk sample from the Porky West deposit, 7 km west of Seabee, has already been milled at Seabee. That sample consisted of 7,000 tonnes of Porky West material grading 4.4 grams per tonne, plus 500 tonnes of low-grade stockpiled material that had been included unintentionally in the milling program. Gold recovery was 95.5% although Claude’s president Neil McMillan described the material as “metallurgically complex.”

The Santoy 8 zone should be ready for bulk sampling early in 2008. There, an inferred resource of 910,000 tonnes grading 6.1 grams gold per tonne has been estimated.