Platinum assays imminent from Platinova/Corona bet

Wide-spaced drilling on a layered intrusive of 6.2×4.9 miles has already demonstrated the continuity of a shallow dipping gold horizon. According to Chris Jennings, Corona’s vice-president of exploration, the tonnage pot ential could be huge.

Corona is spending $3 million to explore the geological structure known as the Skaergaard intrusive in return for a 51% stake in the project while Platinova retains a 49% carried interest until the program is completed next fall.

Although the Skaergaard structure isn’t exactly a household word in Canadian investment circles, Jennings’ confidence in the project is based on two main factors. First, a series of nine surface drill holes, spaced at intervals of 0.5-1.2 miles, demonstrated the gold horizon’s continuity by consistently intersecting it at depths up to 1,600 ft. Secondly, grades of 0.17 oz gold per ton and 0.11 oz pgm (platinum group metals) indicate that the horizon is comprised primarily of gold rather than platinum and palladium.

Also encouraging is the similarity of the layered intrusive to the system which hosts North America’s only primary platinum group metals mine, the Stillwater in Montana. (The mineralized zone at Stillwater stretches for about 26 miles but it doesn’t contain a gold horizon.)

“We keep hitting the horizon everywhere we drill,” said Jennings who claims that the contained gold reserves could “run into many millions of ounces.”

Corona and Platinova are still waiting to learn the platinum and palladium values in wedge cuts extracted from the 9th hole. Those results were expected to be available this week.

But before they begin to calculate reserves, Corona will complete another 40,000 ft of drilling to “investigate the entire length of the intrusion to find where the highest grade portion is located.”

Scheduled to begin April 1, that program would also be used to determine the site for underground exploration, Platinova President Robert Cannicott told The Northern Miner.

That the project will prove mineable is “by no means a foregone conclusion,” said Jennings. He was referring to the relatively narrow width of the gold zone (higher values are being found in a 3-to 10-ft wide area) and the fact that any future underground mining operation would have to involve bulk- mining techniques to keep costs down.

About 50-100 ft below the gold horizon is a second palladium- enriched zone which, according to Jennings, may prove to be uneconomic. Measuring between 10 ft to 13 ft wide, the lower horizon also contains trace amounts of gold.

However, the proximity of the exploration site to Greenland’s coastline means that ore could be shipped out and the partners wouldn’t need to build much in the way of infrastructure.

Gannicott is also encouraged by results of metallurgical tests which show that metals could be recovered relatively easily. Because gold occurs as a native gold alloy together with platinum and palladium, a separate recovery system isn’t needed to extract the palladium-containing minerals. As a result, a gravity separation and flotation system could be used for mineral recovery instead of environmentally troublesome cyanide.

Also, since the gold horizon is almost free of sulphides, the joint venture could dump tailings into the nearby fiords without having to worry about generating acid, according to Jennings.

“We could start to talk about inferred reserves by the end of next year,” said Gannicott, who predicted recently that the underground exploration phase will begin in 1991. “By that time, the public’s appreciation of the project will have increased,” he said.

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