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.
Eastmain Resources has reported the results of 13 drill holes completed at its Clearwater property which were drilled around the Caradoc showing and tested a total strike length of 4.5 km, within the 14-km long Knight-Serendipity (KS) banded iron formation.
Drill highlights include 0.9 metres of 3.76 g/t gold and 1.5 metres of 1.11 g/t gold; both of these intercepts are east of the Caradoc target area.
“With the final results from the 2019 field program released, we remain positive on the mineral potential of the KS horizon and will be assessing various targets for inclusion in our 2020 field program,” Blair Schultz, the company’s president and CEO said in a release. “The company is currently reinterpreting several high priority targets at our flagship Eau Claire deposit and expects to announce these targets for drilling in the coming weeks.”
In addition to the exploration efforts, Eastmain will continue with engineering studies to facilitate future development of the Eau Claire deposit at Clearwater.
The Eau Claire deposit, which lies 14 km away from the banded iron formation, hosts both open-pit and underground resources. A preliminary economic assessment completed for the project in 2018 outlined an operation extracting 1.6 million tonnes at 3.78 g/t gold from the open-pit and 4.8 million tonnes at 5.24 g/t gold from the underground portion. The resulting mine, with a 12-year life, would produce an average of 86,100 oz. annually in the first 10 years of operations at all-in sustaining costs of $574 per oz. The associated net present value estimate for the project, at a 5% discount rate, came in at C$260 million.
Eastmain is currently working on a revised PEA for Eau Claire, which will be followed by the extraction of a bulk sample and additional drilling.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)
