Troilus drills ‘land that time forgot’ in central Quebec

Between listing on the TSX Venture Exchange in January 2018 and graduating to the Toronto Stock Exchange in October the same year, Troilus Gold (TSX: TLG; US-OTC: CHXMF) drilled 36,000 metres of drilling on its namesake property in Quebec and boosted the project’s mineral resources by 90%.

In November the junior exploration company reported its Troilus gold project contains indicated resources of 3.40 million oz. gold and 231 million lb. copper held in 121.7 million tonnes grading 0.87 gram gold and 0.086% copper (3.2 million oz. gold at 1 gram per tonne gold equivalent), and a further 1.02 million oz. gold and 66.2 million lb. copper in 36.1 million inferred tonnes grading 0.88 gram gold and 0.083% copper (1.2 million oz. at 1 gram per tonne gold equivalent).

Since then, the company’s share price has more than doubled to 93¢, and last month management kicked off its 2019 drill program of 40,000 metres, a campaign that CEO Justin Reid says will show “significant results over the next little while.”

“The history of Troilus is really what’s driving this,” Reid says, noting that mineralization on the property was discovered in 1986, and an open-pit mine built by its previous owner, Inmet Mining, went on to produce 2 million oz. gold and nearly 70,000 tonnes copper.

A drill rig at Troilus Gold’s namesake gold project near Chibougamau, Quebec. Credit: Troilus Gold.

“It was rushed into production so Inmet could become a gold producer and garner that gold multiple as a base metal producer, and they accomplished that,” he says. “But what we’ve found is that very little exploration ever occurred outside of the main orebody or below the old resource shells … because they put the deposit into production in a US$350 per oz. gold price environment, so the money wasn’t there to do that.”

This year the company plans to build on the success of its first drill program, which included extending the main Z87 orebody (the source of most past production) from a 500- to 850-metre depth, where it remains open. It also extended J4 — a small, adjacent past-producing pit — down to 350 metres below surface from its previous depth of 100 metres, where it remains open for expansion, and probed below the expected limits of the J5 mineralized zone, a shallow, historic pit that produced 50,000 tonnes of mineralized material near the end of the mine’s life in 2010, and found more mineralization.

“This year is really a follow-up of what we accomplished last year. We are extending J4 and J5 down dip, we are moving southwest from Z87, and we’re going northeast along the trend,” Reid says. “It’s a big program.”

Extending the J Zone (J4 and J5) to the northeast will be facilitated by the company’s decision late last year to triple its land position north of its property boundary, with the acquisition of 120 sq. km owned by Emgold Mining (TSXV: EMR; US-OTC: EGMCF).

Reid refers to Troilus as “the land that time forgot,” due to the lack of exploration on the project, which sits near Chibougamau in central Quebec.

Looking west at the historic Z87 pit at Troilus Gold’s namesake gold project, 175 km north of Chibougamau, Quebec. Credit: Troilus Gold.

“Everyone has been focused on the Abitibi, and no one has ever moved north to the Frotet-Evans greenstone belt,” he says. “There is an abundance of opportunity, and we are exploring in an area that has not seen any exploration in 30 years.”

About 80% of the 40,000-metre drill program this year will concentrate in areas around the mine, and 20% will be on regional exploration. On top of that, there will be boots-and-hammer exploration, prospecting, mapping, ground geophysics and scout drilling, with the entire work program costing between $8 million and $10 million.

“The structural model we developed last year can now be applied to the entire belt, and that’s going to be our regional focus this year,” Reid says. “So we’re drilling at the actual mine, but are launching a very large exploration program across the entire property.”

A new structural model should help guide exploration, he says.

“Historically, many thought of Troilus as an Archean porphyry … but there really is no such thing as an Archean porphyry,” Reid says. “It’s an incredibly thick and continuous low-grade bulk orebody, with mineralized zones running between 45 and 50 metres wide, and continuous down-plunge, so there was never a lot of work or emphasis placed on the structural controls to the mineralization. It was always thought that if you explore for and drill the diorites, you’ll hit mineralization.

“But what we found through regional mapping, re-mapping the pit wall and re-drilling some of the main zones, and focusing on structural controls, is that this deposit isn’t just a massive intrusive. It’s a series of isoclinally folded limbs, and Z87, J4 and J5 are not separate orebodies. We believe Troilus is just one orebody that has been folded on itself, and, by taking a structural approach, you no longer have to look solely for the Troilus diorites. You can now start exploring other lithologies and focus on a structurally controlled mineralization, which opens the entire belt.”

A worker in the core shack at the Troilus gold project. Credit: Troilus Gold.

Once Troilus completes its 40,000-metre drill program, it will remodel the pits and move towards a preliminary economic assessment, but Reid says the company isn’t in a rush.

“We’re still new to the project. We’ve had great success and we want to complete really good work, and so we’ll take our time,” he says. “We’re well-funded and have great, supportive shareholders, and I think it’s going to grow into something really, really special in Quebec.”

In addition to the exploration upside and the fact that the project sits within the Plan Nord region of the province, the company inherited $200-million worth of infrastructure from previous owners, including a 50-megawatt substation, a 65 km dedicated power line, fully permitted tailings facility and many roads. The company recently completed building a 50-person camp.

“To have a large resource like we do, and with the infrastructure we have in Plan Nord, we think we’ve got a good future ahead of us.”

Quebec announced Plan Nord — its 25-year, $80-billion development project focused on provincial territory north of the 49th parallel — in May 2011.

In February the company reported that over the previous three months management and the board had acquired 2.7 million more shares in the company, bringing their total stake to 7.5%.

Troilus Gold’s largest shareholder is Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. Others include Emgold Mining, RBC, Don Smith Gold Funds, U.S. Global Investments, AGF Mutual Funds and Sulliden Mining Capital (TSX: SMC).

The junior has 52.5 million common shares outstanding for a $48.8-million market capitalization.

Over the last year, its shares have traded in a range of 40¢ to $1.88.