Timmins Report Positive results on Puissance

The contribution of flow- through funding for junior exploration programs is still being felt in the Timmins area.

One of the more interesting projects is known as the Puissance project of Orcana Resources and Morgain Minerals, two companies which are subsidiaries of Golden Shield Resources.

Orcana and Morgain together have an option on the Puissance property, which is located in Deloro Twp., just behind the once-producing Buffalo-Ankerite property.

The property has been worked off and on since the winter of 1983-84, says Ken LaPierre, consulting geologist on the project. He said close to $750,000 had already been spent before the current program started Jan 17. In the works for the current program is another 15,000 ft of diamond drilling, he added.

“We are trying to figure out the down-dip potential of the green carbonate zone, the same zone we have been studying for the last three or four years,” he said.

Much of the overburden on the property has already been removed and a surface exploration program has revealed several instances of visible gold.

A 200-ton bulk sample was removed from the property in the summer of 1985, said LaPierre. The sample was run through the GoMill custom milling facility on the property of Pamour Inc.’s Schumacher division.

“We came back with some very encouraging results,” he said, “so we blasted out another bulk sample, this one of 5,000 tons, and we will run that through the mill as part of our current program.”

As much as $600,000 will be spent on the current diamond drilling program, he said, all of it coming from the flow-through share method of financing. “If it wasn’t for flow-throughs, we would not have a program out there at all,” he said. “Flow-throughs are critical for this type of industry.”

He said the small bulk sample removed in 1983 showed grades of 0.14 oz gold per ton and other results have returned grades in the range of 0.10 oz, more than enough, LaPierre believes, to warrant continuing the exploration program.

“The structure is anywhere from 18 to 80 ft wide,” he said, “but the average width is about 25 ft. It dies steeply to the north and is about 4,000 ft in length on the property.” Already 15 holes have been drilled with another 20 scheduled for the current program.

Work is continuing at a feverish pace on the Tyranex Gold property near Shiningtree, about 60 miles due south of Timmins.

Anywhere from 40 to 60 employees, mostly from nearby Gowganda, Shiningtree and Timmins, are on the site of the former gold producer at any one time.

There are four drills currently operating on the site and a team of four full-time geologists is closely monitoring the results of the drilling program.

Already close to 30,000 ft of diamond drilling has been done in 70 holes and there are plans for a further 30,000 ft of drilling on the surface plus another 15,000 to 20,000 ft underground.

Dewatering of the 1,125-ft shaft has already begun and mine workers are currently ramping toward the ore zone near the 150-ft level.

The Tyranex property ceased production in 1942. It was then known as Tyranite Gold Mines and during its lifetime it produced 31,000 oz of gold from 224,000 tons of ore between 1939 and 1942.

Plans for 1988 include the installation of a test mill on the site by the project’s operators, Mill City Gold and Gunnar Gold. Mill City and Gunnar can earn a 50% interest in the Tyranex property by spending $5 million before August, 1990. Some $2 million has already been spent developing the property, including the erection of a new 110-ft headframe.

Drill-indicated reserves between the surface and the 825-ft level stand at 276,000 tons in the Main Shear South lens and an additional 250,000 tons have been defined between the 823- and 1,425-ft levels. At an ore grade of 0.2 oz gold per ton, this represents an in-place drill-indicated reserve of 105,200 oz of gold.

The Duggan zone, which is 1.5 miles west of the Main Shear zone, was drilled in 1938. Seven holes totalling 650 ft outlined a gold- bearing zone 100 ft long and 20 ft wide, between the surface and a 70-ft depth, which averaged 0.25 oz.

Kidd Creek Mines, the Timmins base metals arm of nickel giant Falconbridge Ltd., will appear in court April 25 to face pollution charges laid by the Ministry of the Environment. Rick Besner, an investigating officer with the ministry, appeared before provincial court judge Richard Lajoie Feb 9 and asked for the adjournment.

Kidd Creek is facing 19 charges under the Environmental Protection Act: one count that it altered a plant and equipment and rate of production without a certificate of approval, four counts each of damaging vegetation and causing material discomfort, and nine counts of excessive emissions of sulphur dioxide.

The company faces a maximum $5,000 fine on each count. The trial is expected to last one week.

The mayor of Kirkland Lake, a town of about 12,000 just over 90 miles from Timmins, is furious with Finance Minister Michael Wilson for proposing alterations to the flow-through financing structure. Wilson wants to gradually remove the 33 1/3% Mining Exploration Depletion Allowance, something Mayor Joe Mavrinac says will cause irreparable harm to Canada’s exploration industry.

He told more than 250 delegates at a Canadian Save Flow-Through committee symposium in Ottawa March 1 that Wilson’s proposals have already sounded the death knell for a major $50-million, 5-year project involving Queenston Gold Mines and Northfield Minerals Explorations which had high hopes for a property just west of the operating Macassa mine in Kirkland Lake.

In Timmins, meanwhile, Jim Richard, president of Overburden Exploration Services, says as many as 300 exploration and related jobs will be lost in Timmins in fairly short order if the finance mininster doesn’t back down from his hard- line stance on the future of the depletion allowance.

Richard is also president of the Timmins Save Flow-Through committee, which inundated the Energy, Mines and Resources department and the Finance department with a petition calling for the retention of the depletion allowance in its present form. There were over 10,000 names on the petition, which was presented at the Canadian Save Flow-Through committee’s symposium in Ottawa, March 1.