Wawa may return to its industrial roots as a gold mining town.
Red Pine Exploration has released a new mineral resource estimate for its Wawa Gold Project showing there’s significantly more gold than originally calculated five years ago.
That has the Toronto gold company painting a development scenario for both an open-pit and underground mining operation on its exploration property, two kilometres south of the town of Wawa.
Red Pine’s much-anticipated update shows an indicated mineral resource of 14.7 million tonnes, grading 1.8 grams per tonne of gold, containing 842,000 ounces of gold. The inferred resource is 16.2 million tonnes, grading 1.6 grams per tonne, containing 843,000 ounces.
That’s up 150 per cent in total ounces of indicated gold from 2019.
The difference between indicated and inferred resources is the degree of confidence in the amount of minerals in the ground, with indicated being the higher category and inferred being the lower.
Red Pine is still a long ways off from making a decision on whether to construct a mine at Wawa.
The updated resource is focused on drilling at two deposits, dubbed Jubilee and Minto, in an area that was previously mined and once populated by a dozen former operations. This particular gold system historically produced only 120,000 ounces at an average of 9 grams per tonne of gold. The wider region, around Wawa, has produced more than three million ounces since the first gold rush in the 1890s.
Red Pine provided no resource update on its Surlaga deposit, the largest at the project site.
The company believes the property still has more ounces to give, especially at depth, in some underexplored places in and around some of these old mines.
The project sits on a gold-bearing geological structure that extends for more than six kilometres. The company said this latest estimate comprises only a small portion of its 7,000-acre holdings. There remain several historic zones and new targets that are worth exploring, especially at depth.
In some spots, gold mineralization appears at surface and extends down as far as 1,200 metres.
It’s all encouraging news for Red Pine following an assay tampering scandal that rocked the junior miner in June. The company is accusing its former CEO, Quentin Yarie, of the misdeed.
It prompted the company to immediately implement a new protocol of its drill results and make a concerted effort to win back investor and market confidence. A new president-CEO, Michael Michaud, is in place to bring fresh eyes to the project.
In a statement, Michaud said these results validate the 65,000 metres of drilling performed over the years, and boosts their confidence that Wawa can be a “potential high-quality open pit and sizable higher-grade underground mine.”
“We believe the mineral resource we have defined today is just the beginning. The latest drill results not only highlight the potential of the Jubilee Shear to host significant gold mineralization over thick sections, but drilling has also confirmed that gold mineralization remains open laterally to the north, and both down dip and down plunge. Any future discoveries in these areas can add substantial value to the Wawa Gold Project, and as such, is a priority for near-term exploration drilling program.”
