A new zone at Seabee doesn’t disappoint Claude

Just three months after discovering the L62 zone at its Seabee gold mine in northern Saskatchewan, Claude Resources (CRJ-T, CGR-X) has outlined a strike length for the zone of 75 metres, a dip length of 300 metres and has decided to add another 20,000 metres to its 2011 drill program.  

Highlights from diamond drilling in the L62 zone include 10.68 grams gold per tonne over 2.5 metres trude width in hole U11-354; 14.01 grams gold over 5 metres true width in hole U11-637; and 261.28 grams gold over 3.6 metres true width, including 1,563 grams gold over 0.5 metres.

The new intercept from hole U11-638 is roughly 45 metres away from hole U11-629, which earlier reported 39.75 grams of gold per tonne over 10.0 metres true width. 

The L62 zone is about 200 metres away from existing development and operations on multiple levels in the hanging wall of the Seabee mine. The company plans to start development towards the L62 Zone late in the fourth quarter of 2011 with development ore anticipated by the second quarter of 2012. The L62 zone is believed to be open in all directions.

Wendell Zerb, a mining analyst at Canaccord Genuity, forecasts that within the next eighteen months the Seabee operation will be producing at an annualized rate of about 62,000 ounces of gold at an operating cash cost of about US$596 per oz., the brokerage said in a morning note to clients. 

The Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based company has produced about 950,000 ounces of gold from its Seabee operation since 1991. Seabee consists of the Seabee gold mine and the Santoy 8 gold mine, 14 km away from the operation’s central milling facility

Seabee is in the La Ronge mining district at the north end of Laonil Lake, about 125 km northeast of the town of La Ronge, Saskatchewan and about 150 km northwest of Flin Flon, Manitoba. Access to the mine site is by fixed-wing aircraft from La Ronge or Flin Flon to a 1,275-metre airstrip on the property. Equipment and bulky or heavier supplies are trucked to the site on a 60 km winter road from Brabant Lake on Highway 102.

The company also owns 100% of the 10,000 acre Madsen property in the Red Lake gold camp of northwestern Ontario and has a 65% working interest in the Amisk gold project in northeastern Saskatchewan.

In Toronto at presstime Claude Resources was trading at $1.98 per share within a 52-week band of $1.23-$2.84.