Moneta Porcupine ups gold resource by 58%
Moneta Porcupine Mines Inc. [ME-TSX, MPUCF-OTC] on Tuesday November 26 released an updated mineral resource estimate for the South West gold deposit located within its 100%-owned Golden Highway Project, 110 km east of Timmins, northern Ontario.
Based on the latest drill program completed in the second quarter, 2019, the company has upgraded a significant portion of the South West resource, increasing the indicated resource by 58% to 472,000 ounces. It has also increased the size of the inferred resource by 40% to 1.05 million ounces.
The estimate is based on a gold price of US$1,250/oz and a cut-off grade of 3.00 g/t gold, assuming underground extraction.
“We are encouraged by the increase in the overall size of the updated South West mineral resource estimate, which advances the deposit towards critical scale,” said Moneta Porcupine CEO and Chief Geologist Gary O’Connor.
On Tuesday, Moneta Porcupine shares eased 4.7% or $0.005 to 10 cents. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 8.5 cents and 16 cents.
Moneta Porcupine holds a portfolio that includes five gold projects located along the Porcupine Fault Zone in the Timmins Gold Camp, a region that boasts 85 million ounces of historical production. They include Golden Highway, North Tisdale, Nighthawk Lake, Kayorum and Denton.
The Golden Highway Project is a largely contiguous land package of 689 claim units covering 11,000 hectares.
Since the early 1980s, exploration on the Golden Highway property has resulted in the discovery of a number of gold deposits and gold mineralized zones. These can be classified as structurally-controlled orogenic gold deposits in an Archean greenstone belt setting.
Six of these (South West, Windjammer South, Windjammer Central, Windjammer North, 55 and Discovery) have been sufficiently drilled to have mineral resource estimates prepared for them.
The updated mineral resource was prepared by Micon International in accordance with NI 43-101 standards of disclosure.
The company said the South West deposit has shown a significant improvement in size over a previous estimate released in January, 2019 and remains open. “Moneta has identified several adjacent targets at surface displaying the same style and tenor of gold mineralization within the Golden Highway Project which were not included in this mineral resource update and are the focus of the current drill program,” the company said in a press release.
Moneta is also drilling the extensions of adjacent gold deposits within the Golden Highway project.
“We are confident of the ability to continue to increase the size of the deposits and targets located within the project,” O’Connor said.
“Following our recent successful private placement financings in the third quarter of 2019, we are fully funded and have commenced the next stage of drilling to test the resource expansion potential of the the West Block area of South West, the Windjammer South and 55 deposits, as well as the Halfway and Westaway target areas,” he said.
In a previous role, O’Connor worked as District Exploration Manager for Freeport-McMoRan Inc. [FCX-NYSE] (1990 to 2000). During his term with Freeport, he worked on the due diligence which led to the revelation that Bre-X Minerals’ so-called Busang gold deposit in Indonesia was actually a fraud.