Kaminak starts $15M Yukon drill program

After one of the most successful initial drill programs in the Yukon last year, Kaminak Gold (KAM-V) is back with plans to drill up to 45,000 metres in 2011 on its 100%-owned Coffee gold project in the White Gold district.

“Our goal is to ultimately define near-surface gold resources across the vast property,” said Kaminak’s president and CEO Rob Carpenter in a prepared statement. “Our strategy of drilling beneath in situ gold-in-soil trends led to eight drill discoveries in 2010, and to date, only 10% of the property has been systematically explored.”

The company has begun reverse-circulation drilling with a single rig at the most promising zone, Supremo, to further test the T3 trend. Drill highlights from T3 in 2010 include: 16 metres grading 17.1 grams gold per tonne, 14 metres of 12.4 grams gold, and 51 metres of 1.2 grams gold.

Two diamond drill rigs are also set to start turning in early May at the Latte and Double Double zones, with a third diamond drill rig expected to arrive in mid-May.

In June, Kaminak will start collecting 10,000 new soil samples across unexplored and underexplored regions of the property. This will be followed by second-round drilling on the Kona, Americano and Espresso zones in July, and first-round exploration drilling on the newly defined Sugar, Macchiato, Americano West and Cappuccino targets in September.

Carpenter says Kaminak’s plan is threefold: first, expand and define the eight gold zones discovered in 2010; second, continue to discover new gold zones across the Coffee property by drill testing high-quality soil anomalies; and third, develop a National Instrument 43-101-compliant inferred resource for the most promising zones.

The company completed an $11.5-million bought-deal financing at $3 per share and $3.60 per flow-through share in March, adding to the $12 million it raised last November. In all, the company is starting the 2011 exploration season with roughly $30 million in working capital.

Kaminak is the most successful so far of the eight companies managed by the Howe Street-based Discovery Group, which was started in 2005 by Vancouver promoter John Robins and Edmonton geologist John Williamson.

It was one of the first companies to join the rush for properties in the Yukon’s White Gold district in 2009, a year before Kinross Gold (K-T, KGC-N) took over Underworld Resources for its White Gold property, after which the district is named. Well-known Yukon prospector Shawn Ryan vended both properties.

Other junior explorers under the umbrella of the Discovery Group include: North Country Gold (NCG-V), which began a $25-million, six-rig drill program at its Three Bluffs gold project in Nunavut; and Kivalliq Energy (KIV-V), which started a 35,000-metre drill program at its Angilak uranium project, also in Nunavut. 

Kaminak’s April 20 announcement that its 2011 exploration program has begun helped the company’s shares close up 16¢ to $3.87 on 272,000 shares traded.