St. Joe Canada’s exploration program for 1987 is expected to be the largest and most diversified in the company’s 6-year history. This follows a record year of exploration activity in 1986 highlighted by the discovery and partial delineation of the Golden Patricia gold deposit, 70 km west-southwest of Pickle Lake, northwestern Ontario.
This year’s budget will be about $3.5 million, slightly less than the $3.8 million spent in 1986. Expenditures by St. Joe on wholly-owned or controlled mineral properties and on properties on which joint-venture partners are earning an interest will be at least double this amount. This expenditure level is being achieved through a combination of tax- incentive, limited-partnership financings and joint-venture funding. In all but two of eight joint ventures now in effect, St. Joe is the operator.
On the Golden Patricia project, expenditures have been capitalized for 1986 and 1987. Underground exploration is proceeding on the property with a view to completing a feasibility study before the end of the year. Capital expenditures on Golden Patricia are not included in the above figures.
As in previous years St. Joe will be concentrating on precious metals exploration with emphasis on gold in the Canadian Shield of Ontario and Quebec. Gold/silver is the exploration target in British Columbia, in various geologic environments. Platinum and the platinum group metals have now assumed a high priority; and exploration for these metals is being concentrated in northwestern Ontario. A modest program for base and associated precious metals exploration in the Grenville geological province of Quebec and Ontario continues.
The company’s strategy for 1987 will be to concentrate on those exploration targets offering the most promise of success in a short period of time. This means that St. Joe’s efforts will swing heavily towards its more advanced projects, where diamond drilling is the primary exploration tool, and away from grassroots projects requiring a longer lead time to discovery. St. Joe’s greatest efforts will continue to be in northwestern Ontario. Gold projects under way in the Pickle, Birch and Shoal Lakes areas are being intensely explored by diamond drilling.
The approximately 1,700 claims held by St. Joe in the Meen-Dempster Lakes greenstone belt, west of Pickle Lake, are being drill-tested on a reconnaissance basis along the interpreted geophysical/geological extension of the Golden Patricia main gold-bearing horizon and on parallel formations. At Birch Lake, 110 km east-northeast of Rod Lake, St. Joe (60%) together with joint-venture partner, Nexus Resource Corp. (40%), is conducting a major diamond drill program comprising some 20,000 m to test: a) the depth potential of gold mineralization on Horseshoe Island, and b) numerous reconnaissance drill- indicated targets elsewhere on this 790-claim property. Diamond drilling is expected to resume on the 33 patented claims owned by Kenora Prospectors and Miners at Shoal Lake, some 50 km west of Kenora, where St. Joe can earn a 50% interest in the property. This ground lies some 3 km northeast of Consolidated Professors’ Duport gold mine where a production decision is expected soon.
In the Abitibi greenstone belt of northeastern Ontario, St. Joe is in 50/50 partnership with Chevron Minerals on two properties in the Matheson-Kirkland Lake area, following up basal till gold dispersion trains and geophysical targets south of the Destor-Porcupine Fault.
The above properties generally constitute more advanced exploration where significant precious metals mineralization has already been discovered or recognized and is in the process of being further delineated. At the less advanced stage of the exploration spectrum, a 1986 release of results from an Ontario government- sponsored airborne geophysical survey led to the acquisition of 366 claims in the Webb Lake greenstone belt, southeast of Pickle Lake. These claims were staked to cover favorable geological/geophysical targets in 13 areas where little previous work has been done and are being readied for ground follow-up later this year.
St. Joe has initiated a platinum group metals exploration program in the Marathon, Atikokan and Thunder Bay districts of northwestern Ontario. Much of this effort will be undertaken through earn-in joint ventures.
In Quebec, St. Joe (49%) continues to participate in a joint venture with Novamin Resources (51%) which is operator on the Darius group of properties along and to the north of the “Cadillac Break.” A major drill program is now under way in an attempt to expand existing gold reserves and test geophysical and drill-indicated targets. Elsewhere in the province, St. Joe is attempting to trace “Montauban-type” gold mineralization in the Grenville geological province on property it holds in the vicinity of Muscocho’s Montauban gold mine, 90 km west of Quebec City. Follow-up work is continuing on zinc-precious metals targets elsewhere in the Quebec Grenville.
Exploration in British Columbia is being directed mainly towards evaluating surface and drill-indicated gold- silver epithermal mineralization on the Silver Pond property in the Toodoggone camp in north-central B.C. Silver Pond, held jointly by St. Joe (80%) and Imperial Metals (20%), adjoins Serem Inc.’s Lawyers gold- silver property to the east where a production decision by Serem is expected this year. A major drill program is planned at Silver Pond this summer. In the St. Elais Mountains of northwestern B.C., St. Joe is exploring precious and base metal massive sulphide targets in a 50/50 joint venture with Newmont Mines on St. Joe’s East Arm property. This 485-claim unit property adjoins the Windy Craggy property to the west, owned by Geddes Resources which contains the giant copper-gold deposit now being readied for underground exploration. Precious metals exploration on property acquired in the Barriere area of southern B.C. will also be initiated this coming field season.
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