Detour Gold quick out of the gate (April 30, 2007)

Sound drill results from its sole asset — the Detour Lake property in northern Ontario — has Detour Gold (DGC-T) moving up the market in step with rising gold prices.

It’s been a brief, but good ride for the Toronto-based company, which only listed on the TSX at the beginning of the year. At the time, it said it would be putting much of the $35 million it raised from issuing 10 million shares into exploring and developing its property.

It proved eager to show the market that it meant what it said, as the day after listing on the TSX, drills were turning on an aggressive 50,000-metre drill program.

Results from the first 10 holes yielded highlights including:

* 2.71 grams gold per tonne over 31 metres and 2.17 grams gold over 22 metres in hole DG-07-01;

* 2.25 grams gold over 31.1 metres in hole DG-07-04;

* 3.15 grams gold over 15 metres, 8.53 grams gold over 8 metres, and 2.48 grams gold over 23 metres in hole DG-07-06; and

* 2.59 grams gold over 20 metres in hole DG-07-13.

The deposit is made up of two known zones — the West Pit and the Calcite zone. One of the aims of the drill programs was to test if mineralization continued between the two zones. The company says its latest results confirm that it does.

Detour describes gold mineralization as occurring within an east-west, 100- to 200-metre-wide corridor that remains open west of the Calcite zone.

The corridor occurs within a sequence of massive and pillowed volcanic flows located on the north side of a major contact with volcaniclastic and ultramafic rocks. The contact is marked by a zone of strong local shearing and hydrothermal alteration referred to as the chert marker horizon.

Gold mineralization within the corridor consists of multiple, sub-vertical, 5- to 35-metre-wide zones grading between 1 and 3 grams gold. Higher-grade gold mineralization is generally characterized by potassic alteration and an increased percentage of sulphide minerals and quartz veining.

Detour says the current drill program should be complete this summer with a feasibility study slated to start in June and a resource update in September.

The property is situated on the Abitibi greenstone belt, and the deposit is located in the area of the former Detour Lake mine, which produced 1.8 million oz. gold from 1983 to 1999.

Detour bought the property for $5 million in cash and 20 million of its common shares.

The project has an indicated resource of 20 million tonnes grading 2.14 grams gold for 1.38 million oz. gold and an inferred resource of 35 million tonnes grading 1.8 grams gold for roughly 2 million oz. gold.

That resource is contained within two open pits and based on a US$450-per-oz. gold price.

Detour shares have gained roughly 20% or 89 since drill results were announced on April 11. At presstime, shares were trading at $5.19, compared with $4.30 before the news. The company has 40 million shares outstanding.