Pure Gold Mining (TSXV: PGM; LSE: PUR) is starting a 30,000-metre underground and surface diamond drill program at its wholly owned PureGold Red Lake mine. The program will be focused on near-term mine plan optimization, resource growth and target new high-grade discoveries.
Pure Gold expects to pour first gold at the mine before the end of this year.
"We believe strongly in the organic growth potential of our PureGold Red Lake mine property. And we are confident that the mine plan outlined in our feasibility study is scalable and has the potential to expand," Darin Labrenz, the company's president and CEO, said in a news release.
"While we remain completely focused on our fully-funded mine construction and ramp up, we strongly believe in the potential for our mineral reserves and mine production to grow, and our new program is designed to start building our future growth today."
The initial underground drilling will be focused on areas scheduled for production in the first two years of operations, while surface work will target new discoveries within a 7-km long corridor. The latter is expected to start in July, with two rigs at the Wedge area. Additional planning is underway to outline higher-grade zones, such as the 8-Zone, which previously returned intercepts such as 4 metres of 466 grams gold per tonne and 6 metres of 342.4 grams gold.
A feasibility study for the mine released last year outlined an operation producing up to 125,000 oz. payable gold a year.
Probable reserves for the project stand at 3.5 million tonnes grading 9 grams gold for a total of 1 million ounces.
Mineral reserves are reported using cut-off grades between 4 grams gold and 4.75 grams gold.
The Pure Gold property covers 47 square kilometres.
- This news item first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal.