Callinex Mines (TSXV: CNX) is getting set for follow-up drilling on two silver discoveries made at its Nash Creek project last year in the Bathurst mining district of New Brunswick.
Personnel and a drill rig are being mobilized to begin an up to 4,000-metre drilling campaign to drill test 10 km of the 18 km Black Point Arleau Brook fault, the company announced on Monday.
This drilling campaign will focus on as many as seven new drill targets identified during the 2020 soil sampling campaign at the Nash Creek project.
The target areas were identified from elevated silver, lead and zinc soil anomalies covering the southern portion of the controlling fault, which is associated with Callinex’s previous silver discoveries.
In June 2020, the company announced two silver discoveries located 6.8 km apart along the Black Point Arleau Brook fault. One drill hole intersected 28.6m of 57 g/t Ag at a vertical depth of 120m including 16.5m of 94 g/t Ag; the other intersected 19m of 36.53 g/t Ag, 0.52% Pb and 0.38% Zn at a starting depth of 34m.
Thus, the area of interest for the upcoming drill program will be subdivided into two main target areas, each containing 5 km of the sample area where one of the discoveries was located.
“We are excited to commence drilling at the Nash Creek project as we focus on expanding upon the two silver discoveries made last year,” Callinex CEO Max Porterfield said in a news release.
“The focus of this drilling campaign is to test for silver mineralization along the 10 km trend. If successful, this would put the company on a path to begin building a near-surface silver resource at Nash Creek and with it the potential to further improve upon the maiden preliminary economic assessment (PEA) that was published on the Bathurst portfolio in 2018,” he added.
Meanwhile, Callinex is continuing drilling at its flagship Pine Bay project in the Flin Flon mining district of Manitoba, which hosts the high-grade copper, gold, silver and zinc Rainbow deposit currently in expansion.
Shares of Callinex Mines surged 12.8% by 11:45 a.m. Toronto time following the latest announcement. The Canadian base and precious metals miner has a market capitalization of C$45.7 million.