Gold sniffs for Benton at Sewell-West project

Last December Benton Resources (BTC-V) launched a 1,500-metre drill program at its Sewell-West Timmins grassroots gold project in northern Ontario, 60 km west of Timmins and 40 km west of Lake Shore Gold’s (LSG-T) Timmins gold mine.

The program was designed to test the baseline showing Benton had identified in 2011 through prospecting, mapping, induced polarization and ground magnetometer surveys. The work identified several areas of anomalous gold mineralization, the most significant of which was the baseline showing, where 40 surface-grab samples collected over a 300-metre strike length returned values ranging from trace to 5.09 grams gold per tonne.

Intercepts from the eight-hole drill program included 94.02 grams gold per tonne over 1 metre in hole 11-03, 1.38 grams gold over 2 metres in hole 11-06 and 1.44 grams gold over 1 metre in hole 11-08. Holes 11-01, 02, 04, 05 and 07 returned trace to weakly anomalous gold values. 

“We’re not sure what it is at this point, but it was a pleasant surprise for us,” says Stephen Stares, Benton’s president and chief executive. “It was only one good one from eight, but it was still a damn good intercept. It’s not one of our core projects, so it was a big surprise to us and we’ll see if we can find more of it . . . we got lucky with one hole, and now we’re just planning the next phase. We’ll do another small drill campaign to follow up on it.”

Mineralization at the baseline showing is hosted within a north- to northwest-trending shear zone made of strong carbonate-altered mafic and lesser ultramafic volcanic rocks, and highly altered, sulphide-rich chert-magnetite iron formation.

The next exploration program will target the favourable gold-bearing horizon to the north and south of drill hole 11-03, and an investigation of other zones identified on the property.

Benton optioned the 13 claims making up the Sewell-West Timmins property in July. 

News of the high-grade gold intercept sent Benton’s shares up 2% to close at 51¢ within a 52-week range of 25¢–$1.45 per share. The junior has 76.3 million shares, fully diluted.

The junior also has $8.1 million in cash, and owns stakes in a number of other mining companies, including: 57.86 million shares in Coro Mining (COP-T); 348,000 shares in Stillwater Mining (SWC-T, SWC-N); 782,500 shares in Marathon Gold (MOZ-T); 1.6 million shares in Puget Ventures (PVS-V); 8.47 million shares of Mineral Mountain Resources (MMV-V);  815,000 shares of Bell Copper (BCU-V); 1.67 million shares of Trillium North Minerals (TNM-V); 1.55 million shares of Golden Dory Resources (GDR-V); and 3 million shares of a private company called Parkside Resources.

Benton is spinning out the majority of its assets by a plan of arrangement into a new listed company in order to separate its 41.9% investment in Coro Mining from its cash, equities and exploration assets. Benton shareholders will receive one share in this new company for each share of Benton held, pursuant to regulatory approval.