Brigus bringing Grey Fox to maturity

Brigus Gold (BRD-T, BRD-N) looks to have a bigger Grey Fox on its hands than it originally anticipated.

The company released the latest batch of results from an ongoing drill program at the property that point to both a more robust open pit in the future as well as underground prospectiveness.

Highlights from the latest batch of assays from 14 holes include 21 metres grading 8.7 grams and 5 metres grading 11.88 grams per tonne from two separate holes in the 147 zone that are above the 200 metre level. Only one of the 14 returned no significant results.

The bulk of Brigus’s current resource lies within a potential open pit, but the new results show some stellar grades below the 200 metre level, which indicates the potential for underground development.

The best of those deeper intercepts came out of hole 639 which returned 11 metres grading 5.35 grams from 434 metres down, and hole 574 which returned 25 metres grading 6.17 grams gold from 265 metres down.

“The open pit opportunity is the current priority but longer term we would expect an underground operation would also be developed at Grey Fox,” Haywood Securities analyst Kerry Smith wrote in a research note.

The other logical outflow from finding high grade results outside of its current resource estimate is that Grey Fox will ultimately yield a more robust resource estimate than the one reported in September of last year.

The 147 zone along with the Contact zone currently have measured and indicated resources of 7.1 million tonnes grading 2.1 grams gold for 480,849 oz. of gold and inferred resources of 1.69 million tonnes grading 1.7 grams gold for 91,061 oz. 

The company plans to release an updated resource estimate on the property next quarter followed by a feasibility study in third quarter of this year.

It currently has four rigs turning on the 147 Zone and one rig on the Contact zone.

Contact is responsible for 201,606 oz. of the indicated ounces in the resource estimate and 39,800 of the inferred ounces. 

Contact remains open along strike and north and down dip, and Smith is bullish on the chances of the zone adding significantly to future resources.

“We believe there is excellent potential to double the size of the Grey Fox resource,” he wrote.

Smith also wrote that Grey Fox could provide roughly 2,500 tonne per day of ore to an expanded mill at Black Fox, with that mine contributing 1,000 tonnes per day. Grey Fox is situated roughly 4-km southeast of the company’s operating Black Fox gold mine in the Timmins mining camp.

Beyond 147 and Contact, the Grey Fox property also holds the recently discovered Grey Fox South zone. The zone sits roughly 400 metres to the east and runs sub-parallel to the 147 zone and returned highlight intercepts of 112 metres grading 1.89 grams gold and 25 metres grading 6.3 grams gold last September.

In Toronto on March 19 — the day after the results were released —the company’s shares were up 7% or 5¢ to 80¢ on nearly 800,000 shares traded.