Vior partners set to begin new drilling phase at Douay

The partners involved in the Douay Twp. gold discovery near Casa Berardi, Que., are preparing to launch a new drilling program to look for an extension of a mineralized zone that yielded 59.3 ft. of grade 0.23 oz. gold per ton in February. The property is held by Inco (TSE) with a 42% interest, Cambior (TSE) with 21% and Societe d’Exploration Vior (ME) with 37%. They will spend $700,000 on the next phase of exploration.

Having outlined on the property a preliminary reserve estimate of 370,000 tons grading 0.31 oz. (at a cutoff grade of 0.08 oz.), they will attempt to find an extension of the discovery on the western part of the property.

Consisting of about 16,000 ft. of drilling, the new program will focus on an area about 1,000 ft. west of the Douay discovery hole and probe to a depth of roughly 1,000 ft.

Vior President Claude St. Jacques said he hopes the ground will be dry enough for drilling to begin in about two or three weeks.

“We are aiming for something big (about one million tons) because the grade is there,” St. Jacques told The Northern Miner. He is encouraged by assays from a shallow hole which was drilled 9,000 ft. east of the new mineralized zone. It returned a 54-ft. intersection averaging 0.05 oz. gold per ton at a depth of 200 ft.

In an area three miles east of the new discovery, a deposit containing 557,000 tons of grade 0.23 oz. was drilled off back in 1981. However, as the geological system that hosts the new east-west trending mineralized zone is interrupted by a major fault on the east side of the property, the Douay partners have elected to drill to the west.