Biron raises $9.5 million, Hecla plans Mooseland shaft

Work crews of Hecla Mining Co. of Canada are clearing the site of a new, 330-m shaft to be put down on Acadia Mineral Ventures’ Mooseland property in Nova Scotia.

Located 45 miles northeast of Halifax, N.S., the property has drill- indicated reserves of about two million tons grading 0.39 oz gold per ton.

Hecla, which has an option to earn a 60% interest in the bet, is preparing plans for an ambitious underground exploration program which is estimated to cost in the order of $9.5 million.

“We are presently talking to various contractors and will be selecting a contractor soon,” President William Allen says.

Hecla plans to drift on the 300-m level initially to delineate ore in the West Zone where the initial drill holes were put down in 1987. The second priority will be to investigate the ore potential in the East Zone, which lies on the east side of a sinistral fault which cuts the mineralized zone.

A permit from the Nova Scotia government for site clearing has been received, but the final environmental permit for the underground exploration program is still pending. “It should be no problem,” Allen tells The Northern Miner.

Alberta-listed Biron Bay Resources is acting as the fund raisers for the project. Earlier this year, President Leonard Taylor convinced Hecla his company could put together a team which could raise the necessary funds, allowing Hecla to concentrate on its specialty.

Together with Hecla’s long history of mining narrow-vein deposits in the U.S., the two companies are an amalgamation of all the necessary skills to make an integrated mining company, Taylor says. Biron Bay has raised the necessary $9.5 million and should have $10 million in its coffers by the end of the month, according to Taylor.

Biron Bay can earn a 25% interest in the property.

Ian McAvity, president of MVP Capital, has been appointed to the board of directors of Biron Bay.