Mining Report: Junior miners show off drilling results

Foran Mining executives believe they’ve found a second mineral deposit in northern Saskatchewan.

The company announced an initial resource for the Bigstone deposit, one of Foran’s wholly owned projects in northern Saskatchewan. The deposit, located about 100 kilometres east south east of Flin Flon and not far from Foran’s existing McIlvenna Bay project, is seen by the company as a major part of its northern Saskatchewan plans.

Five years ago, a Foran drilling campaign in the region returned a 104.93 metre intercept with 2.03 per cent copper grade - plans are underway to hold further drilling at the site in 2021.

According to the company, the Bigstone resource has an indicated tonnage of 1.98 million tonnes, with 1.88 per cent copper, .92 per cent zinc, .25 grams per tonne of gold and 9.5 grams per tonne silver. The resource includes a total inferred resource of 1.88 million tonnes.

“While we are merely scratching the surface of this outstanding deposit, we are very excited to be adding Bigstone to our growing resource base,” said Foran executive chairman Dan Myerson in a press release.

“The Bigstone resource is one of the many satellite deposits that will serve as additional feed for McIlvenna Bay as we develop the Hanson Lake District into Canada’s next mining camp.”

The company also announced the closing of a private placement in early December, raising a cool $1 million after issuing more than 5.7 million units consisting of common shares and common share purchasing warrants. The units were bought by Myerson - who bought four million of the units himself - and Darren Morcombe, Foran’s executive director, purchasing the rest.

Callinex

Another Callinex discovery at their Pine Bay project site has the company moving forward.

The company announced their Rainbow discovery at the Pine Bay site Nov. 18, located not far from the existing Pine Bay headframe at the north arm of Lake Athapapuskow.

According to a company news release, one of Callinex’s drill holes from the site intersected two high-grade zones - one zone, dubbed the orange zone, returned five metres of 10.63 per cent copper equivalent, with 8.79 per cent copper, 1.38 grams per tonne gold, 24.02 grams per tonne silver and 1.79 per cent zinc. The second zone, which the company named the yellow zone, came back with 5.4 metres of 4.43 copper equivalent and 3.22 per cent copper, 1.84 per cent zinc, .61 grams per tonne gold and 10.43 grams per tonne silver.

A pair of drilling rigs were at the site to conduct further drilling, running until mid-December and resuming in January.

“The exceptional high-grade drill results announced to date make Rainbow a bonafide discovery within the Flin Flon mining district,” said Callinex president and CEO Max Porterfield.

The company raised $256,333 after a stock option exercise earlier this month, including $198,000 relating to options with an exercise price of $3.30 a share.

In November, Callinex also received a grant from the Manitoba Mineral Development Fund for work on the Rainbow project. The company received $300,000 from the provincial government-run fund to push the project ahead.

Lake Winn

A newcomer to the Flin Flon mining region has started their own drilling campaign.

Vancouver-based Lake Winn Resources is now drilling on the company’s Cloud deposit, located around the Sherridon Road near Naosap Lake.

The company has hired Rodren Drilling, a company based out of St. Paul, Man. with experience in drilling in the area, to conduct the campaign. Lake Winn announced all exploration and work permits for the Cloud project, including for drilling, trenching and line cutting, were cleared as of Nov. 30. The company now holds over 1,400 hectares as part of the Cloud project.

Drilling so far has been focused on the Bachnick gold zone, a zone just over 300 metres in length. Lake Winn plans to carry out at least 1,500 metres of drilling at the Cloud site.