O3 eyes updated Marban gold estimate
O3 Mining Inc. [Oiii-TSXV] on Monday released an update on a 250,000-metre drilling program which seeks to convert, expand and discover new gold resources at its Marban and Alpha projects in the Val d’Or, Que., region.
Marban is situated on the Malartic property, which is located about 12 kilometres from the Canadian Malarctic Mine and along the same structure as Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd.’s [WDO-TSX] Kiena deposit.
The property consists of three mining claims and three concessions, containing the historic KIerens, Norlartic and Marban gold mines.
The Alpha property is located eight kilometres east of Val-d’Or, Quebec, and three kilometres south of the El Dorado Lamaque Mine. The property covers more than 7,754 hectares and includes 20 kilometres of the prolific Cadillac Break. O3 has an option to acquire a 100% interest in the Aurbel mill located only 10 kilometres from the Alpha property for $5.0 million within the next five years.
After recently releasing a technical report containing a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the Marban mine project, the company said it intended to begin working on a pre-feasibility study to advance the Marban project towards production as part of a staged development strategy while continuing its aggressive drill programs.
In Monday’s press release, O3 reported the results of 15 holes drilled in and around the Marban open-pittable deposits.
Drilling highlights include 35.8 g/t gold over 8.9 metres, including 440.0 g/t gold over 0.7 metres in hole O3MA-21-187 located in the proposed preliminary economic assessment pit. Subsidiary zones were also intersected along the same drill hole, yielding 1.0 g/t over 37.0 metres, 3.3 g/t gold over 3.2 metres and 1.3 g/t gol over 31.4 metres.
Drilling highlights from the Norlartic area include 44.1 g/t gold over 2.3 metres, including 192.0 g/t gold over 0.5 metres in hole O3MA-21-203 located in the proposed PEA pit. This intercept is bordered by two historical openings and the gold endowment does beyond those openings, 1.1 g/t gold over 6.4 metres and 2.1 g/t gold over 1.6 metres were also intercepted immediately before and after.
Drilling at Marban has focused on expanding mineralization both inside an outside of the proposed PEA pit areas, as well as discovering new mineralization for an underground mining scenario.
O3 President and CEO Jose Vizquerra said he is pleased with these latest results. “Not only do the results offer us the potential to expand the overall scope of the project, but we are also seeing higher grades than the average resource grade, which we are confident will be reflected in our updated mineral resources in early 2022 and will be an important component in the completion of Marban’s pre-feasibility study,” he said.
In 2021, 63,756 metres were drilled to achieve this goal with up to eight drill rigs testing for potential economic material (PEM), as well as aiming to convert resources from the inferred to measured and indicated, to ultimately become part of Marban’s maiden mineral reserve.
On Monday, O3 Mining shares eased 0.49% or $0.01 to $2.01 and currently trade in a 52-week range of $3.25 and $1.90.