St Andrew eyes open pit at Hislop

Drilling by St Andrew Goldfields (SAS-T) has outlined what could evolve into an open-pit gold deposit at its Hislop property near Matheson, Ont.

Fifteen core holes sunk in the previously discovered West area all intersected near-surface mineralization. Results received to date extend to 300 metres the area’s overall strike length, along which overburden extends no further than 6 metres from surface.

The mineralization begins 366 metres northwest of the old shaft, and St Andrew has already applied for open-pit permits should mining prove feasible. Ore would be trucked 55 km to the company’s Stock mill, where custom milling continues.

Gold grades in the area are generally consistent, with only a few pockets having greater than 10 grams per tonne. Mineralized intervals range from 15 to 50 metres in length, though each contains at least one high-grade subinterval.

Highlights include:

• hole 1, which intersected 18.75 metres (from 30.32 to 49.07 metres) averaging 38.74 grams (uncut) per tonne, including 7.62 metres grading 90.52 grams;
• hole 2, which returned 28.8 metres (from 32.92 to 61.72 metres) averaging 2.74 grams, including 12.65 metres of 4.46 grams;
• hole 11, which yielded 4.46 grams over 25.54 metres (14.69 to 40.23 metres), including 6.51 grams over the first 15.18 metres; and
• hole 12, which averaged 1.71 grams over 42.82 metres (30.18 to 73 metres), including 15.18 metres grading 3.43 grams and 1.52 metres grading 1.71 grams.

Bottle-roll tests on a composite sample from holes 1 to 5 recovered 86% of the gold after 36 hours of leaching. The tests were carried out by Lakefield Research.

Follow-up drilling is under way and will be followed by a more definitive financial analysis and pit design.