Balmoral raises $4.5 million for Quebec drilling
Balmoral Resources Ltd. [BAR-TSX, BALMF-OTC] said Monday it has raised $4.5 million from a non-brokered private placement of 8.93 million Quebec flow-through common shares at 51 cents per share.
Net proceeds will be used for exploration at the company’s Quebec projects, where Balmoral is focused on the high-grade Martiniere gold system and the large H3 (Grasset) nickel-copper-PGE discovery. Both are located on the Sunday Lake-Detour Trend in central Quebec.
Balmoral shares advanced on the news, rising 1% or $0.005 to 47 cents. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of $0.095 and 49 cents.
The 100%-owned Martiniere property is located centrally within the Detour Gold Trend Project, approximately 45 kilometres east of, and along geological trend from Detour Gold Corp.‘s [TSX: DGC] Detour Lake mine and a similar distance from Hecla Mining’s [HL-NYSE] Casa Berardi gold mine.
In March of 2018, Balmoral published an initial resource estimate for the Martiniere Gold System on the property, which is thought to contain 591,000 ounces in the indicated resource category and 54,000 ounces in the inferred category.
The Martiniere Gold System features two prominent deposits, the Bug and Martiniere West gold deposits as well as a number of other structurally-controlled gold occurrences, including a series of discoveries in the Lac du Doigt area 2.0 kilometres northeast of the main deposits.
The Martiniere property also hosts indications of VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) style mineralization which have locally been shown to host gold.
Balmoral also holds a 100% interest in the Grasset Property, which covers the southern portion of the Grasset Ultramafic Complex (GUC), which extends across the company’s adjacent Fenelon and Jeremie properties for a distance of at least 10 kilometres.
The GUC hosts numerous magnetic nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE discoveries made since 2012. The most significant of these to date is the Grasset deposit, a Type 2 komaltite-hosted nickel sulphide deposit.
Grasset is one of the largest nickel sulphide deposits in Canada’s Abitibi region, and the only North American nickel deposit with at least 50,000 contained tonnes of nickel and an average nickel grade of over 1.5% not controlled by a major mining company.
The project is estimated to contain an indicated resource of 3.5 million tonnes, grading 1.56% nickel, 0.17% copper, 0.03% cobalt, 0.34 g/t platinum and 0.84 g/t palladium. The deposit remains open to depth and along strike for further expansion
In addition to the magmatic nickel potential of the GUC, Balmoral has identified a number of zones of gold mineralization on the Grasset property both within the regional-scale Sunday Lake deformation zone, which transects the property, and within secondary structures marginal to the GUC.
The company also says it recognizes the potential for copper-zinc-gold-silver VMS deposits on the property.
On December 16, 2019, Balmoral said it has commenced its largest ground geophysical survey in over four years, targeting the Area 51 gold system on its 100%-owned Fenelon Property.
To date, well over 500 drill holes have tested the Fenelon-Area 51 gold system on the adjacent Fenelon Mine property. Only 16 drill holes have tested the three target areas on Balmoral’s much larger Fenelon property, with 14 of the 16 drill holes having returned gold mineralization.
“We have only just begun to scratch the surface on the potential of the Area 51 gold system at Fenelon,” said Balmoral President and CEO Darin Wagner. “With geophysical surveying underway, data arriving daily, funds in place, and drilling set to commence in the next few weeks, we are looking to continue to build on the positive momentum along the Detour Gold Trend,” he said.