Meadowbank resource grows

A new resource estimate has substantially increased the known tonnage of the Meadowbank gold project in Nunavut.

Cumberland Resources (CBD-T) reports that the new resource estimate is based on 383 drill holes, including 6,000 metres of new drilling done in 1999 on the Bay zone and the Third Portage zone. Results from Third Portage account for most of the difference between the current resource estimate and a calculation the company released in April 1999.

On the Third Portage deposit, consulting firm MRDI Canada has estimated a 7.4-million-tonne resource in all categories, with an average gold grade of 5.88 grams per tonne. The resource’s cut grade, based on reducing high-grade intersections to 45 grams per tonne, is 5.5 grams.

The 1999 resource estimate showed 5.6 million tonnes at 6.6 grams gold per tonne on Third Portage, so the recent drilling represents a large increase in the tonnage. Cumberland sees the deposit, which occurs in the nose of a recumbent fold, as having a shape that lends itself to open-pit mining.

At the Goose Island deposit, about 1 km south of Third Portage beneath Third Portage Lake, the resource now stands at 1.2 million tonnes grading 11.9 grams per tonne. Cutting high grades back to 35 grams per tonne brings the grade down to 9.7 grams. This new estimate brings the tonnage up slightly, while moving the grade down.

At the Bay zone, which occurs between Third Portage and Goose Island and which was first defined in early 1999, Cumberland now has a resource of 684,000 tonnes grading 4.8 grams. Infill drilling on Bay did not substantiate a 1999 estimate of 735,100 tonnes grading 6.6 grams.

At a fourth zone, the North Portage deposit, a 2-million-tonne resource grades 4.5 grams gold per tonne, a substantial increase from the 1999 estimate.

Particularly important at the feasibility-study stage is that 81% of the tonnage calculated at Third Portage is in the measured or indicated classes, as is 65% of the tonnage in the Bay zone and 63% of the tonnage at Goose Island. The company expects to require less definition drilling at the feasibility stage on these deposits.

North Portage, the least thoroughly drilled of the four zones, has about two-thirds of its resource in the inferred category.

Metallurgical tests have concluded that the best economic return will come from producing a bulk sulphide concentrate, which recovers 92% of the gold.

At the Meliadine West project, 40 km northwest of Rankin Inlet, Cumberland’s joint-venture partner, WMC International, the Canadian unit of Australian miner WMC (WMC-N), has plans to drill the Aurora showing. Aurora, about 12 km northwest of the property’s main gold deposit, Tiriganiaq, was found in 1999 by surface prospecting, which turned up 39 gold-mineralized boulders (with grades of 0.1 to 65 grams per tonne) in an area of about 2 sq. km. Subsequent geophysical surveys indicated a conductive zone at depth that WMC thinks could be the source of the boulders.

Cumberland and Comaplex Minerals (CMF-T) each have a 22% carried interest at Meliadine West, with WMC, the operator, holding 56%. Cumberland and Comaplex each hold a half-interest in the adjacent Meliadine East project.