A handful of junior mining companies on the hunt for critical and precious minerals have snagged government grants through the Ontario Junior Exploration Program (OJEP).
Near the north shore of Lake Superior, U.K.-listed First Class Metals (FCM) is earmarking its $200,000 grant for exploration on its North Hemlo property, located just north of Barrick Gold’s Hemlo mine. Their land holding contains predominately gold with molybdenum, copper and zinc in the mix.
The company said in a Sept. 24 news release that this is the third consecutive year it has secured this grant to advance work on North Hemlo and its ZigZag properties.
“This marks our second OJEP grant for North Hemlo and the third grant received by FCM overall,” said CEO Marc Sale in the release.
“The initial grant in 2022 played a crucial role in advancing our appreciation of the North Hemlo block's potential through geophysics and our initial geochemical sampling efforts from rock grabs defining the Dead Otter Trend. We are excited to utilize these funds to further our exploration on the Dead Otter Trend, paving the way for a future drill campaign."
OJEP is a government incentive program that assists junior mining companies with mineral development projects.
The grants are for early-stage, grassroots exploration that involve identifying new targets or evaluating old ones in areas where minerals aren’t known to have previously existed. Companies can access up to $200,000 to cover 50 per cent of eligible costs.
The entire OJEP budget for the government’s 2024-2025 fiscal year is $13 million.
East of Cochrane, Vancouver’s Power Metals announced Sept. 24 that its $200,000 will be earmarked for its Case Lake lithium project near the Quebec border.
With more than 19,000 metres of drill core in the database since 2017, the company discovered cesium in an area on the property called the West Joe dike.
The "extreme level of interest" in this critical mineral has spurred Power Metals to form a cesium advisory committee.
“This (grant) will enable further test work and exploration activities on the property as we continue to develop our cesium deposit at West Joe,” said Power Metals CEO Haydn Daxter in a statement.
In northwestern Ontario, Toronto’s Canadian Gold Corp. secured $200,000 for exploration work at its Hammond Reef South property outside Atikokan. Their property is two kilometres south from Agnico Eagle’s 5-million-ounce Hammond Reef project.
Last month, the company reported discovering a new high-grade zone on the north part of the property and is planning to do an induced polarization survey this fall to outline exploration targets for sampling and drilling.
"This funding allows us to advance our exploration efforts and enhances our ability to make meaningful discoveries,” said Canadian Gold president-CEO Michael Swistun in a Sept. 25 statement.
South of Thunder Bay, Prospector Metals plans to put its $200,000 into use this fall at its Devon nickel-copper property in the Pigeon River area near the U.S. border.
The Vancouver explorer has completed a geophysical survey of its property and is compiling a list of geophysical targets to be drilled off in early 2025, said the company on Sept. 25.
Over the years, OJEP has been modified and relaunched from its first iteration when it was known as the Junior Exploration Assistance Program (JEAP), first introduced by the province in 2015.
The program has helped keep many exploration programs alive during tenuous financial times.
The poster child of the program was Great Bear Resources’ Dixie gold project, which was acquired by Kinross Gold in 2022 and is on track to become one of Canada’s largest gold mines.
Great Bear used $100,000 to jumpstart a drill program that springboarded the company to a second phase of exploration that produced a high-grade discovery hole. The company went on to raise more than $10 million in financing in 2018 to advance the project.
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