Rainy River Expands Resource For NW Ontario Property

Results from an additional 124 drill holes or 68,453 metres have boosted Rainy River Resources’ (RR-V) resource at its advanced gold project in Ontario to 2.37 million oz. gold in the indicated category and 2.66 million oz. gold in the inferred, the company reports.

The numbers demonstrate a 147% resource increase in the indicated category and a 388% increase in the inferred. Average gold grades also increased with the same cutoff grades as in the April 2009 resource estimate.

The advanced gold project is about 162 km south of Kenora, 418 km west of Thunder Bay, and about 21 km north of the Canadian National Railway, which runs east-west just north of Canada’s border with Minnesota.

Rainy River acquired 100% of the project from Nuinsco Resources (NWI-T) in June 2005.

The company has focused on defining mineralization below the limits of the proposed open pit and as a result has increased total underground gold resources to 935,000 oz. in all classes, a 298% increase over the 2009 resource estimate.

If the resources for the proposed open pit and underground are combined, the Rainy River project contains 56.83 million tonnes grading 1.3 grams gold per tonne and 1.81 grams silver, for 2.37 million oz. gold and 3.31 million oz. silver. In the indicated category the combined resource tallies 68.93 million tonnes grading 1.2 grams gold, 2.73 grams silver, for contained gold of 2.65 million oz. and 6.04 million oz. silver.

The open-pit resource used a cutoff grade of 0.4 gram gold and for the underground resource a cutoff grade of 3 grams gold was used. The resource also incorporated a US$850-per-oz. gold price.

The most significant addition of contained gold can be attributed to the extensive 2009 drilling at depths below the conceptual pit bottom. That included the ODM Deeps, 433 zone and the newly discovered high-grade Beaver Pond depth extensions.

The Vancouver-based junior explorer is cashed up, with $69 million in its treasury.

News of the updated resource sent Rainy River’s shares up 21¢ or 4.3% to close at $5.12. At presstime, the company was trading at $5.17 per share.

The company has a 52-week trading range of $1.65-$5.47 and has 60.4 million shares outstanding.