Vedron has fine orebody shaping in heart of Timmins

Some highly encouraging results are starting to come in from the underground exploration-development work now in full swing at the Vedron-Belmoral Mines joint venture project in the heart of the Timmins gold camp.

A development drift has now been established on the main zone at the 375-ft level, reached from a 2,475-ft decline where three separate ore grade occurrences have been encountered.

Seven drift rounds have now been taken on this zone. It is a complex structure consisting of pyritic quartz stringers and veins, with occasional visible gold. Chip samples across the face of the first two rounds returned 0.175 oz and 0.293 oz respectively, both across 12 ft.

Ore from the current drifting, which is averaging 0.223 oz gold per ton, is now being stockpiled on surface.This will be part of a 5,000- ton bulk sample to be shipped to Belmoral’s Val d’Or mill for metallurgical testing before year-end. At the same time driving of the ramp to the 500-ft horizon will continue.

Underground drilling, too, is continuing in order to delineate the ore potential of this main zone. Hole No 33, latest and deepest in the current program which will run to 30,000 ft or so, intersected it at the 400-ft horizon returning 0.333 oz over 27.6 ft including a 10.6 ft section of 0.564 oz.

Earlier drilling confirmed the continuity of this zone along a strike length of over 1,000 ft between the 275 ft and 500 ft horizons. Widths vary from 6 to 27 ft, with grades in excess of 0.30 oz.

Objective of the immediate program is to outline 500,000 tons of ore grading better than 0.20 oz to a depth of 500 ft by early fall, Vedron’s president, Leon F. La Prairie, tells The Northern Miner.

Several other parallel ore structures will be tested. Also, a surface exploration program is under way north of the ramp to evaluate the strike extension of the nearby Paymaster vein 18 ore system.

Completion of a successful exploration program to the 1,500-ft horizon should result in reserves in excess of one million tons, with a potential for as much as three million tons, Mr La Praire says.

As reported in our June 15 issue, serious discussions are under way between Vedron and Belmoral that could lead to a direct merger of the two companies. Indeed Belmoral’s president and chief executive officer, J. Malcolm Slack, places high priority on this particular merger (there could be others), The Northern Miner gathered from a conversation this week. He hopes that terms can be finalized early next month.

(Mr Slack knows the Timmins area and the Vedron property like a book through his long operating experiences there when he was with the Pamour and Noranda organizations. If his present plans come to fruition, they will see the Belmoral company become a big operator in that camp, The Northern Miner can state. These include its own mill there.)