Seabee has more to give for Claude

Claude Resources‘ (CRJ-T, CGR-X) underground exploration program at its Seabee mine in northern Saskatchewan has returned some promising results.

Highlights from four separate holes include: 4.8 metres averaging 22.23 grams gold, 8.3 metres averaging 6.98 grams gold, 6.7 metres average 7.45 grams gold, and 4.5 metres grading 9.43 metres. All reported widths are true widths and all grades are cut grades (meaning unusually high grades are not included).

In Toronto on Apr 23, the company’s shares traded for a penny more at 99 on roughly 98,000 shares traded. Over the last 52 weeks its share price has fluctuated between 90 and $1.80 and the company has roughly 97 million shares outstanding.

“The results being reported today extend the mineralization of several ore blocks at Seabee adjacent to existing mine infrastructure and ore reserves,” Philip Ng, Claude’s vice-president of mining operations said in a statement.

“The true widths of these intercepts are significant as they are wider than the average widths of our existing reserves. This creates the potential for delivery of higher grade feed to the central mill facility at Seabee due to lower dilution, on a percentage basis.”

The company says it has another target it plans to drill later this year that sits roughly 200 metres of one of its known blocks of ore. In the past, the target area returned grades of 31.52 grams per tonne over 1.7 metres and 8.66 grams gold over 2.3 metres.

Since 1991 the Seabee mine has turned out roughly 800,000 oz. of gold. As of the end of 2006, the mine’s reserves were at 692,500 tonnes grading 6.59 grams per tonne or 146,700 oz. while resources were 1.3 million tonnes grading 8.96 grams for 372,600 oz.

Saskatoon-based Claude is a diversified commodities play as it is an explorer and miner of gold as well as a small-scale oil and natural gas producer.

Its exploration portfolio consists of the Madsen property in the Red Lake gold camp of northwestern Ontario.