Premier Gold Mines uncovers high-grade zone at Hardrock

The Hardrock project — operated under a joint venture between Premier Gold Mines (PG-T) and Roxmark Mines (RMK-V) — hosts several past-producing mines that collectively produced nearly 3 million ounces of gold, primarily from shallow depths of about 600 metres, between 1938 and 1968.

Fast forward forty years and drilling at the advanced-stage gold project, a few kilometers south of the town of Geraldton in northwestern Ontario, has returned one of the highest ever gold results from the district, part of the Beardmore-Geraldton Greenstone Belt.

Hole EP105 intersected 1,141.54 grams gold per tonne over 2 metres, including 2,535 grams gold per tonne across 0.9 metres.

Additional holes are believed to have intersected the same potentially high-grade gold structure close to the EP Zone, including Hole OR005, about 35 metres down-dip from EP105, which assayed 12.99 grams gold per tonne across 1.5 metres. In addition, hole EP064 — about 50 metres along strike to the west — assayed 20.10 grams gold per tonne over 0.7 metres. Assay results from other drill holes are still pending.

The EP Zone is one of several potential open-pit zones on the company’s property that is being detailed in preparation for a National Instrument 43-101 compliant resource calculation that is anticipated in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, drilling at the New North Zone continues to define higher-grade, underground-style, gold mineralization, the company says.

“Intersecting such high grade mineralization is always encouraging,” Stephen McGibbon, Premier’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said in a prepared statement. “We know that this camp has a history of high grade mineralization and an intercept like this can have important implications for us if we can confirm some continuity to this structure.”

Work at Hardrock is testing open pit and underground-type targets.

The SP Zone, for instance, is an underground target where recent drilling has returned intersections that include 6.60 grams gold per tonne across 32.6 metres and 6.63 grams gold per tonne across 28.1 metres.

Hardrock demonstrates potential for different scenarios such as open pit-style mineralization where former operators partially delineated historic resources, as well as emerging mineralization at the Tenacity, EP and Kailey Zones; surface and historic high-grade gold intercepts throughout the property that have received little or no follow-up; historic resource blocks within the mine workings, including high-grade vein targets; and the main mined zones that remain open below the 600-metre-level.

Open-pit style mineralization is being intersected in several areas including the Kailey Zone, where drilling has cut up to 1.47 grams gold per tonne over 162 metres and 2.16 grams gold per tonne across 92.2 metres; the EP-Zone, where previous drilling has returned up to 7.60 grams gold per tonne across 20.5 metres and 2.37 grams gold per tonne across 62.7 metres; and the Tenacity Zone, where drilling has intersected up to 15.97 grams gold per tonne across 32.1 metres and 4.13 grams gold per tonne over 18.9 metres.

Additional potential exists to define high grade, narrow vein-style, gold zones similar to the EP105 intercept. Historic work indicates that a second high grade, narrow vein style gold zone was identified in the mine, and intermittently delineated over a plunge length of about 1,100 metres, with drill intercepts that include 112.5 grams gold per tonne over 1.2 metres and 88.5 grams gold per tonne across 1.5 metres.

This style of mineralization is similar to that mined at two of the nearby mines that exist on the Hardrock property; the Little Long Lac Mine (past production of more than 600,000 ounces of gold at an average milled grade of 11.66 grams gold per tonne) and the Magnet mine (past production of more than 150,000 ounces of gold at an average milled grade of 14.4 grams gold per tonne), and the Leitch mine (past production of more than 920,00 ounces of gold was recovered at an average milled grade of 31.54 grams gold per tonne.

At presstime the company was trading at $2.93 per share. The company has a 52-week trading range of $1.05-$2.94 per share and has 78.6 million shares outstanding.