Minnova “firms up” Samatosum tonnage

With production scheduled for mid-1989, Minnova Inc. has begun in-fill drilling on its Samatosum silver deposit, northeast of Kamloops, B.C. The company has a 70% interest in the deposit and Rea Gold has 30%.

Designed to firm up reserves in the northern end of the deposit, the program is not expected to “add any tons,” says Minnova’s exploration manager for Western Canada, Alex Davidson. The deposit has pretty well been closed off, but several other targets exist on the property with reserve potential. None of them have been drilled.

Davidson expects about $500,000 will be spent for exploration in 1988, but he emphasizes the property is really in “the feasibility stage.”

“We’ve submitted a prospectus and are working to put our stage-one report together for May,” he confirms. The maximum production rate would probably be 500 tons per day, but he says that until metallurgical test work is completed, “it’s hard to pick an optimum range.” Initial results indicate metallurgy won’t be a problem; there is no arsenic in the ore but some antimony exist.

Mining widths are fairly narrow by open-pit standards and ore reserves are calculated using 2-m widths, although they are narrower. An internal cutoff has not been calculated yet but will be after metallurgical test results become available. Davidson says mining will be straightforward, that there are no environmental problems, and that development costs should be $20 million which will be shared pro rata by the joint- venture partners.

The stripping ratio averages about 18:1 because the orebody dips into a hillside which rises steeply. Despite the high strip, the upper portion of the orebody will be cheaper to mine by open pit, but underground mining is likely for deeper reserves. At last report, reserves totalled 661,000 tons grading 32.1 oz silver, 0.052 oz gold, 3.5% zinc, 1.7% lead and 1.2% copper.