Seabridge aims to expand Courageous Lake project

Summer drilling by Seabridge Gold (SEA-V) will test four main targets identified last year at the Courageous Lake project in the Northwest Territories.

The company’s wholly owned project covers 53 km of the Matthews Lake greenstone belt, which in turn hosts the company’s Fat deposit.

At last report, the refractory deposit contained measured and indicated resources of 48 million tonnes grading 2.06 grams gold per tonne, plus a further 65.1 million tonnes grading 2.07 grams in the inferred category.

Seabridge recently commissioned Hatch, an independent consulting firm, to bring its previous scoping study up to prefeasibility levels in order to assess the project’s economic potential. The upgraded report should be completed in July.

Hatch’s previous preliminary study concluded that a large-scale, open-pit operation provided the best potential to recover known resources at Courageous Lake.

The upgraded study will examine and recommend processing options for the refractory deposit. Results of previous metallurgical tests show that the Fat deposit can produce a high-grade flotation concentrate that captures 93-94% of the millfeed gold content at a relatively coarse grind.

This concentrate should ultimately recover 90-92% of the millfeed gold content.

While the engineering studies continue, Seabridge is gearing up for a 10,000-metre drilling program, to begin in June. The program will test four zones at Courageous Lake: Salmita, Tundra, the southern strike extension of the Fat deposit, and the Fat deposit’s untested Hanging Wall zone.

Seabridge is also involved in a joint venture with Castleworth Ventures (WTH-V) at the Clifford gold project, in Nevada’s Nye Cty. Castleworth is the operator and can earn a half-stake in both Clifford and the nearby Thunder Mountain property by spending US$1.5 million on exploration over three years and issuing 1.5 million of its shares. Once the earn-in is completed, Castleworth will own 50%, with the remainder held by a 75%-held subsidiary of Seabridge.

The best result from drilling to date is from hole 4, which returned a 10-ft. intercept grading 1.73 oz. gold and 6 oz. silver at a depth of 150-160 ft.

The target here is a bonanza epithermal vein-system similar to those exploited at the Ken Snyder mine and the now-dormant Sleeper mine.

On its own, Seabridge intends to explore further the low-grade Grassy Mountain gold project in Oregon.

Joint-venture partners will test several other projects this year, including Hog Ranch in Nevada, the Quartz Mountain gold project in Oregon, and the Kerr-Sulphurets gold property near Stewart, B.C.