Cambior pulls gold at Westwood

Drilling by Cambior (CBJ-T) at its Westwood property in northwestern Quebec has intersected gold mineralization at depth that appears to correlate with known zones at the Doyon gold mine, 2 km to the west.

Cambior had originally drilled a deep hole to test a prospective area on the Cadillac break at a vertical depth of nearly 1,500 metres. That hole intersected both the horizon hosting the Doyon mineralization and a second zone of mineralized semi-massive sulphide material.

That hole, 1158-02, cut a 0.6-metre length of strongly sericitized volcanic rock with about 20% pyrite and some visible gold in a quartz-pyrite veinlet. The interval graded 39.3 grams gold and 12.6 grams silver per tonne, with trace amounts of copper.

A short distance farther down, the same hole intersected 3.5 metres grading 11.8 grams gold and 5.8 grams silver per tonne, plus 0.24% copper and 0.06% zinc, at a vertical depth of around 1,400 metres. The material was a biotite-altered intermediate tuff with disseminated pyrite and some pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite.

A third intersection in strongly biotitized tuff graded 11 grams gold and 2.4 grams silver per tonne, with 0.13% copper. The rock contained several quartz-sulphide veinlets with visible gold.

At a vertical depth of about 1,500 metres, the hole cut two mineralized zones in the Westwood horizon. One graded 4.2 grams gold and 6.2 grams silver per tonne over 9.5 metres, whereas the other graded 3.4 grams gold and 6.2 grams silver over 15.3 metres. Both intersections carried copper credits as well, 0.14% in the first and 0.38% in the second.

A wedge hole drilled from 1158-02, designated 1158-03A, encountered the same horizons deeper and east of the first hole’s intersections. At a vertical depth of around 1,500 metres, the wedge hole cut a 5-metre length grading 34.3 grams gold and 25.3 grams silver per tonne, plus 0.24% copper. (Capping assays at 35 grams per tonne brings the average grade of the interval down to 14.8 grams.)

The first intersection, which correlates with the Doyon horizon, was succeeded by a 13.2-metre interval running 1.7 grams gold and 3 grams silver per tonne, and then by a series of narrower mineralized zones with gold grades ranging from 1 to 10 grams per tonne.

The wedge hole also intersected the Westwood horizon at a depth of around 1,600 metres. The horizon consisted of strongly sericitized material with disseminated pyrite and chalcopyrite, and local visible gold. A 6.5-metre interval graded 8.1 grams gold and 4.5 grams silver per tonne, with 0.17% copper, and there were narrower zones of lower grade rock.

Cambior also announced it had entered into a bought-deal agreement with a syndicate of six investment houses led by Sprott Securities and National Bank Financial. The deal, originally for 30 million units priced at $2.50, was increased to 40 million units, for gross proceeds of $100 million.

Each unit in the issue consists of a Cambior share plus half a purchase warrant. A full warrant buys a share at $3.75 for five years from the closing date, scheduled for Aug. 12. The deal is subject to a due-diligence investigation and the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange.