Detour finishes off 101,000 metres of drilling

Detour Gold (DGC-T) says assays from the latest batch of infill drilling results at the Detour Lake open pit project 180 km northeast of Cochrane, Ont., were “as expected,” confirming continuity of gold mineralization in several different areas.

The company’s share price fell 5% in Toronto trading today though many gold producers’ stocks were down as much as 8%.

Detour shares fell 88¢ to $16.27 apiece on a trading volume of 448,000 shares.

The company has drilled 101,000 metres this year, nearly finishing the company’s goal to have 40-metre spacing between drill holes in the 18,000E section at the west end of the Calcite zone. In total Detour has drilled 332,000 metres since it bought the Detour Lake project in early 2007.

Detour hopes to add to the 8.8-million- oz. gold reserve (contained in 238.6 million tonnes grading 1.15 grams gold per tonne) with all the recent drilling before a feasibility study comes out in the first half of 2010.

Detour finished a prefeasibility study for Detour Lake in September, outlining a plan to build a 45,000-tonne-per- year open-pit mine that would produce 560,000 oz. gold per year over 14.5 years.

The results for an additional 41 holes, or 15,000 metres, were released. There were 25 holes drilled in sections 19,260E to 20,520E (the area of the former open pit) and they showed good continuity of gold mineralization in the core of the mineralized corridor. Many of the holes were testing the northern limit of the corridor – more than 300 metres in the hanging wall.

Highlights include hole DG-09-750 with 31 metres grading 4.23 grams gold per tonne (uncut) or 3.63 grams per tonne (cut).

Hole DG-09-758 returned 20 metres grading 3.8 grams gold per tonne (uncut) or 2.71 grams (cut), and 41 metres grading 3.94 grams gold per tonne.

Hole DG-09-730A returned 48 metres grading 1.89 grams gold per tonne, confirming some historic underground intersections.

There were seven drill holes completed to the west of the former open pit area that confirmed the continuity of the gold mineralization. Hole DG-09-731 returned 40 metres grading 3.14 grams gold per tonne (uncut) or 2.23 grams gold per tonne (cut). Hole DG-09-732 returned 18 metres grading 8.01 grams gold per tonne (uncut) or 2.54 grams gold (cut).

Over in the calcite zone, there were nine infill holes that confirmed gold mineralization that was encountered in previous holes. Hole DG-09-756 returned 16.5 metres grading 3.67 grams gold per tonne (uncut) or 1.35 grams (cut) and Hole DG-09-757 where 38 metres averaged 1.18 grams gold per tonne.