Wrightbar’s plans for Bourlamaque placed on hold until better

Development plans for Wrightbar Mines’ (ME) Bourlamaque gold property near Val d’Or, Que., have been put on hold.

President W. J. Cluff said the project operator, Belmoral Mines (TSE), has been asked to close up the property, which has been on a care-and-maintenance basis since July, 1988.

Belmoral owns 2.1 million shares of Wrightbar, which has about 12.5 million shares outstanding.

About $13.5 million has been spent on exploration work on the property, which hosts a decline ramp to a vertical depth of about 500 ft. Two gold zones, about 2,000 ft apart, have been identified on the property. Reserves (all classes) to 500 ft stand at 338,501 tons grading 0.196 oz gold per ton.

Cluff said the Wrightbar directors, independent from Belmoral, rejected a proposal by Belmoral to spend a further $2 million to place the property into production because it was felt the proposal would not “attractively reimburse” Wrightbar. The directors felt Wrightbar should wait for better times and hopefully better profits, Cluff said.

The Bourlamaque property is south of, and adjacent to, a producing gold property owned by Belmoral.

Cluff said the Bourlamaque property also hosts a copper showing, about 6,000 ft south of the gold zones, which was previously drilled to 500 ft. While Wrightbar has no immediate plans to further explore the copper showing, Cluff did not rule out the possibility of another company offering to undertake exploration work.

One property Wrightbar is keen on exploring further, Cluff said, is its Puiseaux Twp., gold prospect in Quebec’s Casa Berardi area. The property adjoins the Inco-Golden Knight gold project which went into production last year. Preliminary geophysical work has been done by Wrightbar on the property.