Noranda drilling at Monument Bay

A drilling program is expected to start shortly on the Monument Bay property in northeastern Manitoba.

Bellex Mining (VSE) recently completed an option deal with a unit of Noranda (TSE) allowing it the right to earn a 50% interest in the property.

Bellex can earn an initial 35% interest by spending $5 million in the next 3 years. By spending an additional $2 million, the company can earn the remaining 15% interest in the development area where the three gold zones have been identified. To earn the remaining 15% interest in the balance of the property area, Bellex would have to spend a furhter $2 million.

Noranda has spent about $3.5 million on the property to date and defined three gold bearing deformation zones along the 22-mile length of the project area.

The Twin Lakes A and B zones about 100ft apart, are estimated to contain preliminary reserves of 1.5 million tons grading 0.08 oz.gold per ton and 520,000 tons grading 0.46 oz., respectively.

Gold is associated with a wide silicified zone in the A, while the B zone is narrower with gold hosted in sheared quartz veins. The third area, the Seeber River C zone, is estimated to contain a preliminary reserve estimate of about 650,000 tons grading 0.29 oz. gold. Mineralization in the Seeber zone is in a sheared, fractured felsic dike and ranges in width from 60ft. to 300ft.

The coming program will be split between expanding the known zones and testing various targets both to the east and the west of the zones.

Gary Schellenberg, a director of Bellex, said the company was fully funded for the initial $1.1-million program.