SOQUEM planning return to Quebec’s Abitibi area

The president of SOQUEM, Dr Andre Laurin, in an inte rview, said the Crown corporation was told a few years ago to concentrate its activities on other parts of the province, Abitibi being the most popular region of Quebec for mining development.

Now, Laurin said, the time may be right for his organization to return to the area where one of its former properties, the Doyon, is the largest producing gold mine in the province.

Laurin, the former assistant deputy minister (mines) with Quebec’s ministry of energy and resources who took over the running of SOQUEM in 1988, was in Toronto attending the annual convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, to which he has been appointed a director.

“I see SOQUEM as a mineral exploration firm,” Laurin said of his organization which was created in 1965 and which has budgeted $5.8 million of its own funds for exploration for the fiscal year Apr 1, 1989-Mar 31, 1990. Joint ventures

The Crown corporation’s emphasis is on forming joint-venture operations for property exploration and development, Laurin said. An additional $1.2 million is already anticipated from partners for exploration work during the 1989 fiscal year. Laurin said SOQUEM is not interested in developing a mine by itself.

SOQUEM currently derives its revenue from the stock dividends of Cambior Inc. and from proceeds retained from the privatizing of Cambior in 1986. (SOQUEM retains a 30% equity interest in Cambior.) Laurin said SOQUEM is financially self-sufficient and should remain so until 1990 or 1991.

About 55% of SOQUEM’s exploration budget is devoted to base metals, 25% to gold and the remainder to industrial minerals.

As has been the case the past two years, SOQUEM plans to invest about 60% of its exploration budget in the Chibougamau-Matagami area of Quebec. Among the 14 active projects in this area, the Philibert gold property, operated in association with Cambior, represents one of the better prospects.

Recent drilling at Philibert confirmed the presence of two gold- bearing silicified lenses located 260 ft apart within an east-west structure, the strike length of which is at least 10,000 ft. Among the better results are 0.23 oz gold per ton over 13 ft, 0.23 oz over 6.6 ft and 0.16 over 31 ft.

In the Matagami area, Equity Silver Mines (TSE) is earning a 40% interest in a 992-claim gold property along the shores of Lake Olga. Base metal targets

About 20% of SOQUEM’s budget is being spent in the Grenville and Appalachian provinces. The majority of the 12 projects in the Grenville are aimed at uncovering base metal deposits — lead-zinc at the Mt. Laurier basin where one property is held in association with Rio Algom (TSE) — and a lesser but significant portion in the search for industrial minerals, particularly graphite.

In the Gaspe region, the focus is on base metals, including a search for copper with Noranda Minerals near Murdochville.

And in the Eastern Twps., both base and precious metal targets are sought. An exception is a property held with FinNeth Exploration, where concentrations of rutile have been uncovered.

By the end of the 1989 fiscal year, SOQUEM hopes to have explored more than 35 properties, with about half of the exploration budget being spent on drilling representing more than 80,000 ft.

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