While Glencore’s Kidd base metals mine is slated for closure in two years time, the legendary Timmins camp is far from finished when it comes gold mining longevity.
McEwen Mining is excited by a new prospect in its gold mining stable at the Fox Complex, east of the city, that contains a new and emerging deposit dubbed Grey Fox.
In releasing a raft of high-grade assay results this week, the Toronto gold company framed the ongoing exploration program at Grey Fox as opening up “new possibilities for resource and production growth” in what is already a very prolific mining area for McEwen.
The company boldly compares the geology at Grey Fox to the Hishikari Gold Mine in Japan, one of the world’s richest gold mines that’s produced 8.6 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 30 to 40 grams per tonne since 1985.
At the Fox Complex, McEwen has three main properties — Black Fox, Stock and Lexam — situated along Highway 101 and around the town of Matheson.
Black Fox, 11 kilometres east of Matheson, is an integral piece of the company’s production in containing the Black Fox and Froome mines with two mines-in-waiting in Grey Fox and Tamarack.
As an area of intense interest for McEwen, Grey Fox is situated on the southern part of the Black Fox property with six gold zones mapped out, including Whiskey Jack where those drilling results originated from. One drill hole, spotlighted in a Dec. 2 news release, yielded 10.2 grams per tonne of gold over an 11-metre section.
Currently, Grey Fox has a gold resource of 1.4 million ounces of gold in the indicated and inferred categories. McEwen maintains that more than 90 per cent of that resource sits within 300 metres of surface.
These latest drill results will be folded into an upcoming new mineral resource for Grey Fox and the entire Fox Complex, due out sometime in early 2025.
Come January, expect a new exploration push at Grey Fox. Armed with a $9.7-million budget, the plan is to punch almost 70,000 metres worth of drill holes.
McEwen said it wants to determine if there are near-term gold mining possibilities while it probes into some previously untouched areas in order to develop a better geological model of the deposit.
The company’s currently modelling of Grey Fox shows the presence of more than 50 distinct gold mineralized lenses — a body of ore that’s thick in the middle and thin at the edges — in an area of about 1.3 square kilometres, with many of those features extending near surface.
In a statement, chairman and chief owner Rob McEwen is enthusiastic about the potential at Grey Fox.
“Our investment in exploration at Grey Fox, in the southern portion of the Black Fox property, is generating an exciting future for two specific reasons," he said.
"Firstly, our team is focused on drilling to add gold ounces into our production pipeline. Secondly, we are impressed by the depth potential.
"There are two styles of gold mineralization, epithermal veining and orogenic lenses, both gold-rich at the top of the systems. Based on our past and recent drilling, it appears that the Fox Complex has the opportunity to expand its production profile, and the depth potential is still wide open.”
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