By ADELLE LARMOUR
Premier Gold Mines Limited is spending millions of dollars on its advanced exploration project in the Red Lake Mining Camp in northwestern Ontario.
Considered to be one of the most strategic land packages of any company in the Red Lake Camp besides Goldcorp’s gold mines, president and CEO Ewan Downie says they are spending a total of $10 million with their joint venture partner Goldcorp on the two-year exploration program (2007/08).
The property, known as the Rahill-Bonanza project, located along the main Red Lake mine trend between the Red Lake Gold Mines to the east, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldcorp, and the Cochenour Gold Mine and Bruce Channel discovery to the west.
“We have a good portion of the main geology on the mine trend immediately west of the mine, which is likely the world’s highest grade gold mine,” Downie explains.
As a relatively new junior, PGM was created when Wolfden Resources Inc., a base and precious metals exploration company created by Downie in the early 1990s, vended its gold assets into the company in August 2006. By June 2007, Wolfden was bought out by Zinifex Limited, a major lead and zinc Australian-based mining company to the tune of $363 million. Downie has now assumed a full-time position as president of Zinifex Canada Limited, the Canadian subsidiary.
“We didn’t feel we were getting the proper evaluation for having both advanced-staged gold and base-metal projects in one company,” Downie says. “We spun out the gold assets and now Premier is trading near the share price that Wolfden was prior to the takeover.”
Although Downie expected Premier to be bought out first, which was part of the reason they did the spin out, he says it continues to trade well on the market. Premier holds six different gold properties in northwestern Ontario and one joint venture property in Mexico.
Presently, their focus is on the Rahill-Bonanza JV in Red Lake, comprised of 44 continguous mining claims, totalling to approximately 2,056 acres. They are accessible year round and currently host three drills. One is drilling from the underground workings of the Red Lake Mine at the 6,000-foot level onto the JV property, one of the projected mine zones stated in Goldcorp’s analyst’s update.
Familiar with the properties since 2000, Downie says there are three known deposits on the property to which they are trying to increase and identify mineable horizons. They are also performing deep drilling at the Wilmar Mine workings, a past producing mine. Here they have intersected multiple gold horizons including a new zone discovered in the hanging wall of the Wilmar Horizon, according to the Sept. 6, 2007 press release. Several intersections have assayed up to 1.7 ounces per ton.
“We’re getting the typical narrow high-grade zones you’d find in Red Lake,” Downie says. “Now we’re going to try to prove them to be continuous enough to mine.”
If all goes well, the next stage will be to consider some bulk sampling or underground work in early to mid-2008.
