Underground plan for Placer, Dome at Musselwhite

Down the road, Placer Dome could be looking at still another gold mine in the Pickle Lake area of Ontario.

The company expects to start an underground program this winter on the Musselwhite project at Snoppy Lake, northwest of Pickle Lake, where Henry Brehaut, senior vice-president operations tells The Northern Miner exploration to date has outlined reserves of about four million tons, at a grade of 0.2 oz gold per ton.

That’s already about twice the reserve size (and similar in grade) of Placer Dome’s Dona Lake gold orebody southeast of Pickle Lake, which will be brought into production in first quarter 1989, at a production rate of 40,000 oz gold annually.

Placer Dome has a 35% interest in the Musselwhite project,and is manager, with partners Inco Ltd. (24%), Esso Minerals Canada (24%), and Lacana Mining (17%).

Mr Brehaut says the present reserve figure of four million tons at Musselwhite was calculated prior to completion of a further recent drilling program on the property, which means that revised estimates are still forthcoming. “Placer Dome as manager, is examining alternate schemes for an u nderground ore definition program,” he said, “and we are looking at the expectation that we can start such a program this winter.”

Four different zones have been outlined to date on the Musselwhite ground.

The Placer Dome executive points out that the Dona Lake project has the advantage over the Musselwhite of being closer to infrastructure at Pickle Lake. The former is about 15 km away, and Musselwhite about 100 km from Pickle Lake.