EXPLORATION ’94 — Saskatchewan focus of uranium activity

Six major projects — Midwest, McClean Lake, Cluff Lake (Dominique-Janine), McArthur River, Cigar Lake and Eagle Point — are at various stages of development in Saskatchewan.

The prairie province remains the focus of uranium production and exploration in Canada. There were no significant discoveries last year. Following the report from the Joint Federal-Provincial Panel on Uranium Mining Developments on the Midwest, Dominique-Janine and McClean Lake projects, the province and the federal government approved development at Cluff Lake (Dominique-Janine) and at McClean Lake (but without the panel’s proposed 5-year delay) and accepted the panel’s re-commendations that the Midwest project not go ahead in its present form.

The panel has yet to rule on Cigar Lake, which is on care and maintenance now that the test mining stage is completed, and McArthur River, where the underground exploration stage to establish minable reserves and mining feasibility is proceeding.

Approval of the Eagle Point mine was recommended by a Federal Environmental Assessment Panel in November, 1993, although a decision on related development of the Collins Bay A and D zones was postponed pending further environmental studies.

At Eagle Point, underground drilling, test stoping and ore processing were undertaken in 1993. The mine will provide ore for the Rabbit Lake mill when processing of the Collins Bay B zone stockpile is completed in 1994. Saskatchewan mines at Key Lake, Rabbit Lake and Cluff Lake produced 8.5 million kg U3O8 in 1993, a slight increase over 1992. Only Key Lake operated at capacity; Rabbit Lake and Cluff Lake are working at half capacity. Sales amounted to 7.5 million kg U3O8 valued at $375 million.

Some 10 companies still remain part of uranium exploration joint ventures, mostly in the east and southeast of the Athabasca Basin, where potential for discovery, particularly at depth, remains high.

However, the low price of uranium and the excellent reserve position do not favor a large grassroots exploration effort at this time except by the established major companies.

Although only a half-dozen companies are active in gold exploration (compared with more than 60 in 1988) and grassroots exploration has declined to a 10-year low, work continues in the Glennie Domain and in the La Ronge Domain where two test mines are under development.

Claude Resources continued to operate the Seabee Mine successfully. Gold production in 1993, at 57,582 oz., was slightly reduced from output in 1992. Production last year came from 2 and 5, zones from which a total of 172,024 tonnes grading 11.1 grams gold per tonne was milled out of 191,899 tonnes broken.

Reserves have also improved, standing at around 250,000 tonnes grading 10.3 grams at year-end, sufficient for 17 months of operation. The company is optimistic that additional reserves will be identified by surface drill programs on the 161 zone and on the western extension of zone 2 to the property boundary, by underground drilling for depth extensions of zones 2B and 2C and by drift development to the 161 zone.

At Contact Lake, a joint venture of Cameco (TSE) and Uranerz Exploration and Mining is proceeding with phase one, to be completed this month, of a $4.5-million underground test mine to verify continuity and grade of ore. Current minable reserves, standing at 1.3 million tonnes averaging 8.01 grams gold, are the most significant yet identified in the La Ronge gold belt. Gold mineralization is confined within a 55-65 dipping, east-northeast trending shear zone cutting granitic and grano-dioritic phases of the Contact Lake Pluton.

Commercial production would involve expenditures of $33 million and construction of a 750 tonne-per day mill. The mine will produce an estimated 338,000 oz. gold.

Waddy Lake Resources (TSE) has also embarked on undergound test mining (to be completed early this year) at the Komis deposit, a gold-quartz vein system in metavolcanics abutting a “granite porphyry” stock.

The $5.6-million program is designed to extract a 10,000-tonne bulk sample and evaluate the geometry and grade continuity of the orebody, estimated to contain 303,000 tonnes grading 16 grams gold.

The Komis bulk sample will be hauled 75 km and tested at the Jolu mill owned by Golden Rule Resources (TSE), Waddy’s majority shareholder. Seven other prospects with identified reserves exist in the adjacent “Byers Fault” area. Some of these may see development if Komis proves successful. Exploration for base metals remained at a low level. However, the area of most activity moved from the sub-Phanerozoic west of Flin Flon to the Wollaston Domain, where Noranda Exploration initiated a new effort to discover sediment hosted copper and lead-zinc. The company has acquired more than 60 claims encompassing known copper showings at Duddridge, Janice and Rafuse Lakes and zinc-lead showings at Sito, Fable and Johnson Lakes. Shallow drilling returned 40 metres of 2.5% zinc at Hewetson Lake, and 40 metres of 1.9% zinc at Sito Lake, in metasediments representing sandstone-shale sequences. In the Janice Lake area, 33 metres of 0.77% copper were intersected in “red bed”` metaconglomerates. Although widths of mineralization are favorable, grades encountered to date are considered to be sub-economic.

In the area west of Flin Flon, Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting (TSE) and Granges (TSE) drilled volcanogenic massive sulphide targets along the Birch Lake Mine-Coronation Mine trend and in the Bigstone Lake area, respectively. In the Kisseynew Domain, Sarabat Gold (VSE) completed a small drill program at Schotts Lake, which has reported reserves of 2 million tonnes of 0.61% copper and 1.35% zinc, and Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting optioned the Knife (Mokoman Lake) copper prospect, north of Flin Flon, from CopperQuest (CDN). In the La Ronge Domain, Phelps Dodge Corp. of Canada drilled on the historic McKenzie (Peg) zinc-copper prospect east of Brabant Lake, which has been dormant since Gamsan Resources’s drill program in 1988-89. Identified reserves stand at 3.5 million tonnes grading 4.5% zinc, 0.54% copper and 0.24% lead.

Diamond exploration was the only sector to see increasing activity in 1993. At year-end, some 2.5 million hectares, four times the 1992 figure, were under disposition, predominantly between latitudes 53 and 56 in the Fort a la Corne-Pasquia Hills-Molonosa Arch and Sturgeon, Smoothstone and Wapawekka Lakes areas. Exploration activity consisted mainly of ground detailing government or industry magnetic “bull’s-eye” anomalies and drilling. On the established Fort a la Corne property of Cameco, Uranerz and Monopros, which has yielded macrodiamonds up to 1 carat in size, drill sampling continued. Seventy kimberlite targets from 1 hectare to 74 hectares in size have been identified on this property since exploration began in 1988 and 25 kimberlites have been drill proven. The bodies occur beneath more than 100 metres of glacial overburden.

Rhonda Mining (ASE) and some 14 partners are the largest landholders in the diamond play, with more than one million hectares under disposition. In the Fort a la Corne area, as a result of 1992 drilling, the Rhonda-Aaron Oil (ASE) joint venture reported the existence of laterally extensive, uneroded, diamondiferous kimberlite volcanic craters.

In 1993, the joint venture continued to probe these with small-diameter holes and in November announced recovery of yellow diamonds from volcanic kimberlite targets drilled in the Snowden and Foxford areas. Consolidated Pine Channel Gold (VSE) ran well funded joint-venture exploration programs, principally in the area of the Molonosa Arch (having acquired ground identified in Saskatchewan Energy and Mines Open File Report 92-2 as having good potential; the report by M.R. Gent followed from work funded under the current federal-provincial Mineral Development Agreement.) Exploration has followed the strategy employed successfully at Fort a la Corne, and has led to the discovery of kimberlite indicator minerals in “fragmental clay”.

In a similar venture at Tobin Lake, northeast of
Fort a la Corne, Consolidated Pine Channel Gold also reports a siltstone-lignite breccia containing G9 and G11 pyrope garnets, which has been identified as reworked distal kimberlite material.

In the area of Candle Lake, 75 km northwest of Prince Albert, War Eagle Mining (VSE) and joint-venture partner Great Western Gold (VSE) recently reported drilling three distinct kimberlite pipes on their Candle Lake project. Four holes of a 10-hole program have been completed to date. Diamond exploration efforts are also being made in south-central Saskatchewan, where kimberlitic indicator minerals are widespread, and in southwest Saskatchewan.

The 1993 diamond exploration play will certainly result in more exploration work than was done on land staked after the original Sturgeon Lake kimberlite find in 1988, and may identify new kimberlites of sufficient grade to support production.

— A.J. Gracie and P.L. Schwann are resident geologists, Saskatchewan Energy and Mines, at La Ronge.

Exploration expenditures

1992 (actual) 1993 (estimated)

uranium 8 (57) 10 (72)

gold 6 3 (9)

base metals 4 3

diamonds 4 6

total 22 22

(Note: Figures are rounded to the nearest million dollars. Uranium and gold test mine expenditures are in brackets. Part of the gold test mine expenditures will be incurred in 1994.)