North American Palladium keeps finding more fertile ground for base metals.
The northwestern Ontario miner announced it’s boosting the exploration and drilling budget by $5.7 million due to the increasing number of underground targets being identified.
Last February, the company initially said it was setting aside $16 million for exploration expenses after raising money through flow-through shares in December.
The company has a number of base metal targets in the queue on its extensive property, 90 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, including its recently discovered C Zone.
“The additional funding will allow us to accelerate drilling on most of our underground exploration targets, including Camp Lake, Offset Zone satellites and the recently-discovered C Zone,” said president-CEO Jim Gallagher in a May 29 news release.
The cash will support 25,000 metres of underground exploration drilling and 75,000 metres of resource definition drilling to outline additional resources both east and west of the company’s Offset Zone reserves and beneath the bottom of the shaft.
The company said the latest drill results from the C Zone suggest that a large area of palladium mineralization is near to the Offset Zone, which is currently being mined.
A new exploration drift is being carved out and will be put to use next month.
“With our recently expanded target bank and a larger drilling budget, we are increasingly optimistic about the prospects for significant additions to our palladium mineral inventory at LDI,” said the company’s vice-president of exploration Dave Peck.
