EXPLORATION 1997 — Guyanor drills St-Elie gold project, persists at Dachine diamond property

Determined to outline a gold mine in French Guiana, joint-venture company Societe des Mines de St-Elie has begun a new diamond drill program on the St-Elie project.

St-Elie, the company, is operated jointly by Asarco (AR-N) and Guyanor Ressources (GRL-T), a French company in which Denver-based Golden Star Resources (GSC-T) holds a 68% interest.

The drilling is focused on the Chemin de Fer target, which lies in the southeastern section of the 99-sq.-km property. It is the third of several targets scheduled to be drilled.

Chemin de Fer, which was identified in 1996 by a geochemical survey, is associated with granitic intrusives in the Paramaca greenstone belt. Late last year, four trenches across the primary 1,400-by-200-metre Chemin de Fer anomaly identified a corridor of intense quartz veining 30-40 metres wide over a strike length of 600 metres.

The highlights of each trench included 32 metres grading 3.8 grams gold per tonne, 17 metres of 56.8 grams, 8 metres of 32 grams and 10 metres of 29.4 grams. The average mineralized interval in the trenches was 12 metres, with a weighted average gold grade of 3 grams.

The current core drilling campaign on Chemin de Fer, which is anticipated to consist of 12 holes over 1,800 metres, is designed to test the zone’s continuity at depth.

A second rig is scheduled to begin drilling at either the Chemin de Fer or Michel zones. Following construction of an additional exploration camp, access roads and drill pads, both rigs will test the new Dieu-Merci prospects.

Negotiations with a local mining company have allowed St-Elie to acquire an option on the Dieu-Merci property, which borders the St-Elie property to the east and south. That deal is still subject to government approval. The 4-year option, which covers 155 sq. km, consists of three concessions and one “B” exploration permit.

Four anomalies

Dieu-Merci hosts the southeastern extension of the Paramaca greenstone formation, which trends through the St-Elie property. A soil geochemistry survey at Dieu-Merci collected 906 samples from a 100-by-100-metre grid. The program identified four different anomalies, each of which measures 400-600 metres in length and contains gold values greater than 0.9 gram. Those anomalies have been dubbed Kerouani, Virgile, Cesar and Devis Sud.

Hand and deep auger samples to a depth of eight metres were taken from Kerouani. Nearly 170 deep auger holes returned an average grade of 3 grams, whereas hand auger samples returned an average grade of about 2 grams, with assays cut at 50 grams. Five trenches and nine core holes were completed at Kerouani.

Work at the 600-by-200-metre Virgile prospect included trenching, as well as auger and core drilling. Trenching was also completed on the 600-by-300-metre Cesar prospect and on the 400-by-100-metre Devis Sud prospect.

At Kerouani, five trenches excavated across the zone over a strike length of 350 metres returned an average mineralized interval of 18 metres, with a weighted average gold grade of 10.7 grams; at Virgile, five trenches over a 450-metre strike length returned 10 metres of 7.6 grams; and at Cesar, five trenches excavated over a strike length of 500 metres returned 18 metres of 6 grams.

Quartz veining

At least 15,000 metres of drilling are planned for the property. One rig, at Chemin de Fer, is testing a significant zone of intense quartz veining.

Trenching there revealed strong gold grades. When the 1,800-metre drill campaign is complete, the rig will be moved to the Michel zone for a second round of work.

Through the option on Dieu-Merci, the company has secured known extensions to mineralized zones on the St-Elie property. The Kerouani and Virgile prospects represent additional, ready-made drill targets.

“We intend to mobilize our drill rigs to Kerouani and Virgile as soon as we have established an exploration camp at Dieu-Merci and have transported the required fuel and equipment to support a sustained drill campaign,” says Jean-Francois Sauvage, Guyanor’s managing director. “With many top-quality targets and an aggressive exploration budget, we believe we will begin to demonstrate the potential of St-Elie over the coming months.” Elsewhere in French Guiana, partners Guyanor and Australian major BHP have processed a small initial bulk sample from the Dachine diamond property.

The 186-tonne sample was collected from 10 pits dug along a strike length of 5 km. Processing of the sample was designed to recover only those macrodiamonds larger than 1.25 mm, few of which were recovered.

Jacques Letendre, Golden Star’s program manager at Dachine, admits the company was puzzled by the low results considering that eight macrodiamonds (that is, those measuring greater than 1 mm) were found in 1.8 tonnes of material. More recently, several diamonds larger than 0.5 mm were recovered from samples taken from creeks draining off the Dachine body.

Those poor numbers led BHP to cancel its funding for exploration at Dachine pending a review of final results. But even if BHP elects to terminate the agreement, Guyanor will carry on — possibly with a new joint venture partner.

“Even without the continued participation of BHP, we believe further exploration is justified at Dachine to characterize the geology and nature of the body, which is essential in evaluating whether some portion of the large Dachine body could be economic,” says Letendre.