Aur steps up exploration drive

Now that the Louvicourt mine near Val d’Or, Quebec, is running smoothly, operator Aur Resources (TSE) plans to use its 30% share of cash flow to seek out nearby orebodies.

“We plan to reinvest a good part of (our earnings) to find new deposits,” President James Gill said at the annual meeting in Toronto.

Louvicourt is expected to be operating at full capacity this summer. Aur’s partners at Louvicourt are Novicourt (TSE), with a 45% interest, and Teck (TSE), with 25%.

Gill said Aur will spend $3.4 million, or about 57% of its exploration budget, looking for “Louvicourt-type” copper-zinc-gold deposits and bulk-minable copper and gold deposits in Quebec this year. An estimated 50,000 ft. of drilling will be completed by the end of 1995.

At the top of Aur’s exploration priority list are the Louvex copper-zinc property, the Chimo copper property and the AurBel gold property. All three projects are within 5 miles of the Louvicourt mine.

Louvex, just south of the Louvicourt mine, is a past producer with exploration potential below 1,000 ft. Gill said, after the meeting, that he favors running a 3,000-ft. drift from the Louvicourt mine to provide a drilling platform for deep exploration at Louvex.

At Chimo, Aur is encouraged by the discovery of copper-chloride mineralization reminiscent of the Louvicourt deposit. Intersections to date include 1% copper over about 26 ft. of stringer mineralization. Drilling is expected to resume in August.

At AurBel, where Aur has identified gold mineralization across a 650-ft. strike length, the company hopes to outline a minimum of 1 million tons grading at least 0.2 oz. gold per ton. The ore would supply Aur’s nearby Aurbel mill, which undertook custom-milling operations following closure of the Ferderber and Dumont mines.

As for Aur’s recent acquisition, a 48.3% interest in Canada Tungsten (TSE), a proposed merger between the two companies has been temporarily derailed by a dispute about the value of Canada Tungsten shares, Gill said.

Canada Tungsten, which traded recently at $1.65, has a 70% interest in the Andacollo copper deposit in Chile. The deposit is expected to produce 44 million lb. copper annually beginning in late 1996.