Queenston feeling good about Bidgood

Queenston Mining (QMI-T) put the drill bit to work at Bidgood and the results bode well for an upcoming resource estimate update.

The company reported results from 73 surface diamond drill holes for 14,963 metres from its wholly owned property in Kirkland Lake, and the market nodded its approval.

Queenston shares have climbed as much as 27% since the results came out on Nov. 1, and in Toronto, on Nov. 5, were trading for $4.99 per share.

That movement came after assays showed it had extended the important South Zone, returned positive results from both the shallow and deep areas at the North Zone and that it hit gold in an area between the two zones known as the Gap zone.

In all, Queenston says 76% of holes hit significant gold values and that means there is a good potential for an increase in the resource update, due out in the first quarter of next year.

At the South Zone, drilling extended mineralization along strike to the northeast roughly 50 metres past the current resource area.

Highlight intercepts included 38 metres grading 2.6 grams gold per tonne and 22.4 metres grading 1.5 grams gold. There is currently 100,000 oz. of gold outlined in the zone.

Both the North and Gap zones intersected high-grade mineralization in a number of veins. Highlights there were 3.5 metres grading 21.8 grams gold and 3 metres grading 31.2 grams gold.

“We believe the results indicate vein continuity along strike within each zone but further drilling is required to confirm this assumption,” CIBC analyst Jeff Killeen wrote in his research note.

What it all means for future development is that a future pit at the South zone may well be expanded to take ore from the Gap Zone.

Bidgood hosts the past producing Bidgood mine that produced 165,000 oz. of gold from 1934 to 1951 at an average head grade of 9.2 grams gold per tonne.

Queenston acquired the property along with other assets in Kirkland Lake in 2010 via a merger with Vault Minerals.

Since then the company has been focusing its drills along the Bidgood Mine gold corridor, which was never properly explored since the mine shut down.

The North Zone is near the Bidgood number 2 shaft and is made up of narrow, high-grade mineralization, whereas the South Zone is near the Moffat-Hall shaft and has both high-grade and low-grade near surface mineralization.