Kenorland targets gold, lithium in first Ontario exploration program

Kenorland Minerals (TSXV: KLD) said Monday it has started exploration in northwestern Ontario’s Red Lake district and Wabigoon subprovince.

The work involves multiple regional-scale surface exploration programs at its South Uchi, Western Wabigoon, Flora, Algoman and Stormy Lake projects, covering 3,310 sq. km.

Kenorland has budgeted more than $3.2 million for a summer exploration program that will include mapping, prospecting, glacial till geochemical survey and detailed till sampling for gold and spodumene counts.

“The scale of grassroots exploration which is now underway in Ontario cannot be understated,” Kenorland CEO Zach Flood said in a news release.

“Collectively, these campaigns will cover over (3,310 sq. km) of ground within highly prospective greenstone belts, and in areas which have seen limited modern systematic exploration,” Flood said.

“In addition to the multiple first-pass, property-wide geochemical surveys covering new projects, we are carrying out detailed prospecting and HMC (heavy mineral concentrate) till surveys at South Uchi, following up on two very significant gold-in-till anomalies generated from previous regional surveys.”

Earlier this month, Kenorland said the high-grade gold assays from the winter drill program at its Frotet project in Quebec bode well for an initial resource.

Before that, Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) took a 9.9% stake in Kenorland as part of a $9.9-million private placement in May, joining Japan’s Sumitomo as one of the junior’s biggest backers.

Sumitomo agreed in January to end a joint venture at Frotet, in which Kenorland had a 20% interest, in favour of full control while Kenorland gets a 4% net smelter return royalty. That deal closed in February.

Kenorland has a market cap of $68.7 million.