Drilling at West Timmins’ Montana de Oro

Vancouver — West Timmins Mining’s (WTM-T, WTMNF-O) Montana de Oro project in Mexico is starting to show potential as drill results reveal numerous systems bearing gold, silver, copper and zinc.

The latest results come from the La Dura zone, in the southwest region of the project. Drill hole LC07-07 returned 18.4 metres grading 5.15% zinc, 0.45% copper, 25.65 grams silver per tonne, and 0.5 gram gold. The hole intersected a massive sulphide zone, within a silica-sulphide breccia horizon, returning 7.6 metres of 7.28% zinc, 0.67% copper, 40.79 grams silver and 0.91 gram gold.

Darin Wagner, president and CEO of West Timmins, says the results were exactly what the company had hoped for.

“We knew we had a core zone with higher-grade material and we were very hopeful it would carry across the eighteen-metre width, so we were very happy to see it do so,” he says. “This is only part of a much bigger system that we’re just starting to get the first few holes into.”

Montana de Oro covers 500 sq. km and includes more than 20 precious and base metal discoveries. The region lies in the Sierra Madre belt of Sonoro, Mexico, and is less than 50 km from seven new mines or mine development projects, including Goldcorp’s (G-T, GG-N) El Sauzal gold deposit and Pan American Silver’s (PAA-T, PAAS-Q) Alamo Dorado silver mine.

The La Dura zone is part of the La Conception mineralized system, which, to date, has been outlined for over 2 km east-west and 3 km north-south. The El Rodeo gold-silver zone lies about 6 km east of La Conception. El Rodeo has returned a number of strong drill results, including 4.8 metres grading 9.58 grams gold and 121.77 grams silver. And just 2.5 km southeast from El Rodeo sits the Don Pacho discovery, which hosts a strongly altered vein system that returned one intercept of 12.75 grams silver over 0.7 metre and another 1.5-metre intercept grading 3.64 grams gold and 9.4 grams silver.

“It’s a massive project,” Wagner says. “And with these results, it has stepped up to the next tier. One thing that makes it stand out is that every time we send crews out to do another phase of drilling, they come back with a discovery.”

West Timmins has three drills turning on the project; Wagner says the company is hoping to add another, and maybe more.

“One problem throughout Mexico right now is that drills are in short supply,” he says.

Montana de Oro is not the company’s only large-scale project — West Timmins is named after its 114-sq.-km project in Ontario. The fact that both projects are significant in size is not coincidence.

“We really do aim for district-scale opportunities where you’re not just testing a single target,” Wagner says.

The West Timmins project land completely surrounds Lake Shore Gold’s (LSG-T, LSGGF-O) Timmins West discovery, which hosts indicated resources (compliant with National Instrument 43-101) of 3.3 million tonnes grading 12.3 grams gold uncut (8.6 grams gold cut). West Timmins started drilling that project in late 2006 and is now midway through a 12,000-metre program.

Exploration has thus far outlined the 4800 zone, which has been traced along strike for 125 metres and to a vertical depth of 75 metres. Some of the stronger results came from hole 14, which returned 2.35 metres grading 7.04 grams gold, and hole 1, which intersected 13.45 grams gold over 1.1 metres.