Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Fury Gold Mines (TSX: FURY; NYSE: FURY) has traced continuous gold below historical drill holes over 2.3 km of strike at the Éléonore South project in northern Quebec.
Highlight intercepts include 137.5 metres grading 0.44 gram gold per tonne and 18.7 metres of 0.97 gram gold in drill hole 24ES-161, and 115.5 metres of 0.5 gram gold from drill hole 24ES-162, and 28 metres of 0.47 gram gold from hole 24ES-160.
All seven diamond holes were completed as part of the 2,331.4-metre spring program, which targeted 100 – 150 metre down-dip extensions of existing holes. The work confirmed that the deposit within the Cheechoo tonalite remains open for priority follow-up exploration, CEO Tim Clark said in a news release Tuesday.
“As expected, we continued to find more Cheechoo-style gold mineralization and, through our drilling, gained more insight into the Cheechoo Tonalite,” he said about the project, located 10 km south of Newmont’s (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM) 270,000-oz.-gold-per-year Éléonore mine, host to the 5 million oz.-plus Roberto gold deposit.
But before the summer program can get underway, the company must complete a biogeochemical sampling grid on an area it recently acquired from Newmont. Fury reported in March it has discovered a geochemical gold anomaly within the same sedimentary rock package that hosts the Éléonore mine.
Fury’s senior vice president for exploration, Bryan Atkinson, explained that the observed mineralization confirmed the reduced intrusion-related gold system model with an orogenic quartz veining overprint.
“Gold mineralization occurs within an array of structural corridors with the orientations of individual gold-bearing quartz veins being highly variable within these corridors,” he said in a statement.
The Fury team has already identified two distinct styles of mineralization: structurally controlled quartz veins within sedimentary rocks and intrusion-related disseminated gold mineralization, both offering significant exploration opportunities.
Fury plans to complete the biogeochemical sampling grid to finalize the summer drilling program on the discovery anomaly.
At Fury’s other nearby project, Eau Claire, about another 40 kms south, the company announced a resource update in mid-May, increasing the measured and indicated, and inferred gold ounces by 32% and 45%, respectively, over the August 2023 statement.
Eau Claire now hosts measured and indicated resources of 6.4 million tonnes grading 5.65 grams gold for 1.16 million oz. of metal. It has another 5.5 million tonnes inferred grading 4.13 grams gold for 723,000 ounces.
The Eau Claire deposit remains open to the west, up-dip at the Hinge Target, east, and at depth.
The company plans to release its summer work program for Eau Claire soon.
Fury’s Toronto-listed shares were trading in the red on Tuesday, down 5% at C$0.60 apiece. It has touched C$0.42 and C$0.80 over the past 12 months and has a market capitalization of C$87.7 million ($64.1m).
