Royal Oak boosts Timmins resource

A year of drilling by Royal Oak Mines (TSE) has elevated the preliminary resource at the Night Hawk Lake properties to 1.4 million oz. gold.

The properties, which cover a 46-sq.-km area straddling the Night Hawk Lake fault east of Timmins, include Royal Oak’s newly developed Night Hawk Lake mine and the Ronnoco deposit, acquired by Royal Oak in July 1995.

Royal Oak’s $2.8-million exploration program included 45,000 metres of drilling, in which 77 of the 182 holes intersected mineralization.

The new resource of 800,000 oz. augments Night Hawk Lake’s 243,000 oz. and the 400,000 oz. at Ronnoco. The new resources all exist at depths of fewer than 300 metres, and all zones but one are suited to open-pit mining.

The new zones connect the Night Hawk Lake mine on the west with the Ronnoco deposit on the east. The Night Hawk Lake mine shipped its first development ore in September 1995, and will reach full production in May. A total of 30,000 oz. is expected in 1996, and the mine should produce 40,000 oz. in 1997, its first full year.

Adjacent to the mine is the Gold Island zone, where the best drill intersection returned 2.5 grams gold per tonne over a core length of 46.5 metres. A 21.6-metre intersection grading 2.5 grams was drilled in the Narrows zone (beneath the lake), and in the Hopson zone (immediately east of the Narrows), Royal Oak drilled a 5.5-metre intersection grading 77.8 grams. Drilling on the Ronnoco North zone intersected 33.5 metres with an average gold grade of 4.7 grams per tonne.

The Ronnoco Extension, which exists in a thick syenite dyke, produced a 29-metre intersection, representing a true width of 22.9 metres, with a gold grade of 6.3 grams per tonne. The mineralization increases in grade down-plunge, and the structure trends on to other ground held by Royal Oak. The company sees this zone as a potential underground (rather than open-pit) mine.

Over the next year, Royal Oak will concentrate on proving up minable reserves from these resources.