Vancouver — Drill results from the Black Fox project, near Matheson, Ont., continue to augur well for
The company has been drilling on surface and underground since acquiring the advanced-stage gold project in mid-2002. So far, Apollo has completed almost 390 surface core holes totalling close to 122,000 metres, plus about 100 underground holes totalling 26,000 metres.
The underground work has confirmed the continuity of the Main zone. Results are as follows:
— hole 4 — 13.9 metres (from 86 metres) averaging 20.46 grams gold per tonne;
— hole 12 — 7.2 metres (from 98.5 metres) of 15.96 grams gold;
— hole 39 — 2.3 metres (from 176 metres) of high-grade mineralization grading 46.16 grams gold, and farther down-hole (from 181 metres), a 5.8-metre of 4.25 grams gold;
— hole 46 — a high-grade intersection of 2.2 metres (from 106.5 metres) averaging 305.47 grams gold.
The underground drilling is being conducted at 12.5-metre spacings.
The latest surface drilling has tied into a new area of gold and base metal mineralization outside the Main zone and north of the Destor-Porcupine fault. Results are as follows:
— hole 368 — 3.9 metres (from 105 metres) grading 339 grams silver per tonne, 15.65% lead and 16.53% zinc;
— hole 369 — 3.6 metres (from 98 metres) averaging 105 grams silver, 3.12% lead and 3.17% zinc; farther down-hole, 3.3 metres of 16.5 grams gold and 11.2 grams silver; and farther down-hole still, 2 metres of 9.5 grams gold, 6.1 grams silver, 0.2% lead and 1.08% zinc.
The Black Fox project is in the Abitibi greenstone belt on the 200-km-long, east-west-trending Destor-Porcupine fault. This mineralized belt hosts a score of both operating and historic mines that have produced in excess of 70 million oz. gold.
The Main zone is hosted in moderate-to-steeply-dipping ultramafic (komatiites) and mafic units transected by the Destor-Porcupine fault. Gold is associated with a 20-to-100-metre-wide zone of ankerite alteration (ankerite is an iron-rich dolomite). The alteration zone is cut by numerous felsic dykes and sills. Within the altered ultramafics, gold occurs predominantly as free gold in quartz veins and stockworks, and is associated with pyrite in the altered mafic volcanics.
Mineralized zones remain open at depth and along strike.
Apollo Gold acquired Black Fox, formerly known as the Glimmer mine, from
Production at the Glimmer mine was suspended in mid-2001 as a result of depressed gold prices. The underground mine operated from 1997 through to May 2001, during which time it produced an average of 50,000 oz. annually.
Apollo envisions a combined open-pit/underground mine. A feasibility study is under way and should be completed by mid-2005.
Proven and probable reserves stand at 2.95 million tonnes grading 4.81 grams gold per tonne, or 457,100 oz. There are also 1.4 million tonnes grading 4.78 grams gold, or 221,500 oz., in the measured and indicated resource, and 2.1 million tonnes of 4.8 grams, or 330,000 oz., in the inferred.
Apollo produces gold from its Florida Canyon mine in Nevada and the Montana Tunnels mine in Montana. Adjacent to, and south of, Florida Canyon is the Standard project, which is expected to start up in early 2005. Standard will be the first new mine in Nevada since 1998.
Apollo Gold has 79.6 million shares outstanding and trades in the range of 90-$1 per share.
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