La Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec has acquired an additional 1 million shares in Osisko Metals (TSXV: OM), which is developing two zinc mining camps in Canada.
The Quebec pension fund has been a strategic partner and shareholder in the junior since 2014, and purchased the additional shares this week from Osisko Metal's executive chairman, Robert Wares, who now owns 9.5% of the company.
Osisko Metals, which also listed on the OTCQX market this week, is advancing its flagship Pine Point project on the south shore of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories and its projects in the Bathurst mining camp of northern New Brunswick.
Pine Point is the largest high-grade pit-constrained zinc deposit in the country with a 43-101 compliant inferred resource completed in December 2018 measuring 38.4 million tonnes grading 4.58% zinc and 1.85% lead.
In New Brunswick, its key Anacon project has a historic resource of 1.87 million tonnes grading 9.6% zinc and lead.
The company also owns 42,000 hectares covering 12 grass-roots zinc targets in Quebec.
This year Osisko Metals plans to decrease the drill spacing within Pure Point's inferred resource to about 30 metres from the current drillhold spacing of between 40 and 60 metres. The company also plans an exploration program to search for new mineralization and intends to focus below and along strike of the known mineralized horizons. The work program will include an airborne gravity survey. It recently completed a LIDAR topographic survey. Following the airborne gravity survey, the brownfield exploration campaign will investigate high-potential target areas, in addition to site-wide compilation of historic datasets.
(This article first appeared in The Northern Miner)