Orla Mining, the new owners of the Musselwhite Mine in northwestern Ontario, is putting $25 million into the drill bit this year.
The Vancouver gold company is out to grow gold reserves and resources to extend the underground mine’s operating life beyond 2030. The fly-in, fly-out operation is roughly 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
Orla announced last November it had acquired Musselwhite from Newmont. The $850-million transaction was finalized in March. The exploration program began immediately, the company said in a news release.
Over its 28-year mine life, Musselwhite has produced nearly 6 million ounces of gold.
In the release, Orla said it’s focussing its underground drilling efforts on gold targets close to the mine, including extension along a mine trend that plunges deeper. Orla said it’ll also drill this particular area from surface.
Past drilling by Goldcorp and Newmont revealed that a gold system extends two or three kilometres beyond Musselwhite’s current reserve and resources, and could yield “significant potential mineralization.”
This year’s plan is to confirm the first kilometre to gain a better handle on this extension.
On tap is 35,000 metres of underground drilling. From up top, 10,000 metres is queued up. The last surface program was performed by Goldcorp and Newmont from 2017 to 2020.
Later on this year, Orla said it will be drilling gold targets near the mine to identify possible satellite zones of gold that could provide more feed for the mill.
In a statement, Sylvain Guerard, Orla’s exploration vice-president, said this exploration program is “long overdue.”
“Our primary objective is to intersect mineralization beyond the current reserves and resources along the down-plunge extension of the Mine Trend, demonstrating the potential to extend mine life well beyond 2030. We will also continue underground drilling and reactivate surface drilling near the mine to further expand resources and demonstrate the potential for mine life extension and expansion.”
Besides running Musselwhite, Orla operates the Camino Rojo open-pit gold and silver mine in Mexico and has an open-pit gold mine project under development in Nevada known as South Railroad. The company has made it clear it’s in growth mode to accumulate more assets.
