Northern Star to drill 30,000 metres at Midway-Malartic

Northern Star Mining (NSM-V) will begin a 30,000-metre drill program at its Midway-Malartic gold project near Val-d’Or, Que. by the end of February.

The property produced about 1.7 million oz. gold between 1939 and 1965 when it was known as the Malartic Goldfields property.

Midway-Malartic is next to Osisko Exploration‘s (OSK-V) Canadian Malartic gold project, which has a gold resource of 6.5 million oz., or 178 million tonnes grading 1.1 grams gold per tonne, based on a cutoff grade of 0.5 gram gold per tonne. The Canadian Malartic deposit was discovered in 1926 and produced more than 1 million oz. gold between 1935 and 1965.

So far, Northern Star has drilled 75 holes at Midway-Malartic that returned an average grade of 0.26 oz. gold per ton over 27 feet. The latest drill intercept was 0.26 oz. gold per ton over 52 feet.

The exploration team has found 14 new gold zones as deep as 450 metres, said Jonathon Awde, corporate development manager for Northern Star.

“Now they are not National Instrument 43-101 compliant but we feel pretty comfortable with the zones being very similar to what was mined at Malartic Goldfields,” Awde said.

Last year, Northern Star bought a used mill for $6 million. The mill’s current capacity is 1,000 tonnes per day but Awde said it could be upgraded to its original capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day for $1.5 million.

“It’s a 19-year-old mill but it’s had less than a million tonnes of rock run through it,” he said.

The upcoming drill program is designed to expand the mineralization and expand the 14 zones. The current strike length is more than 900 metres in all directions and at depth.

Northern Star will also be exploring what Awde called, “a new theory,” that is directly related to the company’s neighbour to the west, Osisko.

“There’s some interesting stuff on the southern portion of our property in what’s called the Pontiac sediment,” Awde said.

Northern Star geologists believe they have a porphyry that is associated with an Osisko porphyry.

“Only a rig will prove us correct but our geologists have had a pretty good handle on what’s going on so far,” Awde said.

Northern Star is spending $2 million on exploration in 2007. The company has $8 million in cash.

Northern Star’s stock closed at $1.28 today, up 8 on 644,000 shares.