Will this goose lay a copper-nickel-cobalt egg? (April 30, 2008)

Nemiscau, Que. – Golden Goose Resources (GGR-V) has made a copper-nickel-cobalt and PGE (platinum group elements) discovery here in the James Bay region of northern Quebec.

Exploring where Inco discovered and drilled anomalies in 1964, Golden Goose has conducted its own airborne VTEM survey and staked 100 sq. km, in which it holds 100% interest with no net smelter return (NSR) royalty payable. The company has discovered four anomalies and drilled into a copper-nickel-cobalt mineralized zone with platinum group elements. It is now attempting to expand the resource and to complete metallurgical tests on rock samples.

The Lac Levac project is located about 200 km (aerial distance) from James Bay and 284 km by road from Chibougamau. The big player in the region is Hydro Quebec, whose high-voltage transmission lines traverse the vicinity. Vegetation consists of thin spruce trees, up to six metres tall. The climate is sub-arctic.

Because of Hydro Quebec’s presence, road and electricity infrastructure is surprisingly good for such a remote location. Road access is reasonable, with well-maintained unpaved roads which can handle transport trucks. The main road to the region is the Route du Nord, and the drill site is located 6 km from the intersection of the Route du Nord and the Poste Albanel Road. The drill site is reached via Rupert Road, which is an unpaved private road owned by Hydro Quebec. A short dirt road leads from Rupert Road to the drill site.

Hydro Quebec’s Albanel transmission station is 5 km from the drill site, so if the deposit turns out to be economic, electricity will be close by. (Because Golden Goose’s land position at Lac Levac is large, not all sites are as close to the transmission station). There is a truck stop at Nemiscau Camp, located about 40 km from the drill site. The camp has services such as fuel, accommodation, a dining room and cellphone service. Company staff are housed at the camp, and the core shack is located there, too. The small Nemiscau airfield is located a further 5 km from the camp.

With the exception of fuel, all equipment and supplies needed for drilling and exploration must be trucked in from Chibougamau or airlifted from Montreal or Toronto.

The First Nation in the area is Cree, from the community of Nemaska. The company is in regular contact with the Cree people, and keeps them up-to-date on the status of the project. The First Nation seems pro-development. On the day of the site visit, Jean-Marc Lacoste, Golden Goose’s president and CEO, met with the Cree people for a project update.

The mineralized zone is associated with an ultramafic rock body 4 km long and 300 m wide, known as the NISK-1 anomaly. There is one outcrop of the rock, two km from the drill site. The genesis of the deposit is not yet known. It could be a nickeliferous orebody associated with ultramafic flows (komatites) like the Raglan mine in Ungava or the Marbridge mine in the Abitibi region, or possibly a magmatic segregation deposit linked to an ultramafic intrusion, like the Kabanga deposit in Tanzania. A 1.8-km-long conductor has been identified on the anomaly.

Mineralization occurs as sulphides in massive, semi-massive and disseminated form. In all cases, pyrrhotite is the most abundant suphide, followed by pentlandite, chalcopyrite and pyrite. Thin, late veinlets of digenite and covellite were also observed, as well as pentlandite exsolutions. The pentlandite grains are 0.07 to 1 mm in size and locally constitute 2 to 15% of the rock volume. Chalcopyrite is also present in significant quantities of up to 6%. The sulphides occur within the ultramafic mass. They are always associated with the serpentinized zone, with the presence of chrysotile in the peridotite. The company characterizes the mineralization as composed of massive to disseminated sulphides in an ultramafic rock identified as a serpentinized peridotite.

The mineralized zone identified so far has a strike length of 800 metres, a depth of 330 metres, and a thickness of two to ten metres. Typical grades are 1% nickel, 0.5% copper and 0.07% cobalt. The mineralization remains open at depth and along strike in both directions.

A National Instrument 43-101 technical report from July 2007 is based on 13 holes totaling 2,500 metres. The report calculates resources in the indicated category of 516,000 tonnes of 0.89% nickel, 0.39% copper, 0.058% cobalt, 0.14 gram per tonne platinum and 0.79 gram per tonne palladium. Resources in the inferred category are 734,000 tonnes of 0.89% nickel, 0.34% copper, 0.06% cobalt, 0.14 gram per tonne platinum and 0.77 gram per tonne palladium. The report was compiled by Marc-Antoine Beaupre, geological engineer, who coordinates the drilling campaign on site.

Since this report, another 11,500 metres of drilling have been completed, for a total of 14,000 metres. The company highlights a number of holes. The three longest mineralized intersections ranged from 16 metres to 18.5 metres, with nickel grading from 0.8% to 1.48%, copper grades from 0.42% to 0.63%, cobalt 0.07%, platinum 0.2 to 0.26 gram per tonne and palladium 1.1 to 2 grams per tonne. High grades were returned in hole 56-08 which cut 5 metres of 1.94% nickel, 0.86% copper, 0.16% cobalt, 0.56 gram per tonne platinum and 3.39 grams per tonne palladium from a depth of 320 metres. High PGE grades were returned in hole 40-07, which cut 3.5 metres grading 0.7% nickel, 0.21% copper, 0.04% cobalt, 2.64 grams per tonne platinum and 1.59 gram per tonne palladium at a depth of 243 metres. An example of a shallow hole is hole 53-08 which returned 5.5 metres of 1.22% nickel and 0.75% copper from a depth of 30 metres.

The latest drilling results will be incorporated in an updated NI 43-101 technical report due in May. The company has sent an ore sample to a lab for metallurgical testwork, in particular flotation tests, to determine metal recoveries. Once the new NI 43-101 report and the metallurgical tests are both completed, management is expected to decide on a new round of drilling budgeted at $1 million. Six thousand metres will be drilled, with some holes drilled to a maximum depth of 500 metres. The treasury is cashed up with $3 million, so the company can finance this campaign from existing cash.

Objectives for the drilling include establishing the maximum depth of the mineralization and extending the mineralized zone along strike in both directions. Ground geophysics is also planned.

Doug Hunter, vice-president exploration, says that 20 conductors have been identified on Golden Goose’s land package at Lac Levac. He is particularly interested in seven, and only one has been tested so far. In future, he would like to test the remaining conductors.

To determine whether this deposit can be brought into production, the company has to find out if metallurgical testwork indicates favourable metal recoveries, and if the resource is sufficiently large to justify the construction of a mill. So the company’s focus is on increasing the resource and completing the metallurgical testing.

Beside the Lac Levac project, Golden Goose also holds the Magino gold project, 40 km northeast of Wawa, Ont.