Kirkland Lake reports high grades from Northern Territory

Canadian Mining Journal Staff | December 18, 2019 | 12:29 pm Exploration Australia Gold 
Kirkland Lake buying Detour Gold in stock deal worth $3.7-billion
The Cosmo mine is located in the Northern Territory, Australia. (Image courtesy of Kirkland Lake Gold)

Kirkland Lake Gold released high-grade drill results from its ongoing exploration program at three project areas within its 2,000-sq.-km holdings in the Northern Territory.

Drill highlights from the Lantern deposit at the Cosmo project include:

  • 1.8 metres of 578 g/t gold;
  • 0.6 metre of 127 g/t gold; and
  • 3.1 metres of 67.6 g/t gold.

Work at Lantern focused on targeting extensions of current resources below the existing mining horizons. Additional drilling as well as mining and underground development are ongoing.

Intercepts of note from the Millars deposit at the Union Reefs project include:

  • 0.4 metre of 530 g/t gold;
  • 2 metres of 53.4 g/t gold; and
  • 3 metres of 26.3 g/t gold.

According to the company, new gold mineralization has been discovered at Union Reefs South. Kirkland Lake plans to start decline development at Union Reefs next year; only open pit mining has been conducted on this site to date.

Highlights from the Gandy’s deposit at the Pine Creek project include:

  • 3 metres of 16.1 g/t gold;
  • 4.1 metres of 9.7 g/t gold;
  • 3.5 metres of 9.1 g/t gold.

This drilling targeted down-plunge mineralization with additional exploration planned for next year. Pine Creek is located 15 km to the south of the Union Reefs mill.

“The new drill results in the Northern Territory confirm the existence of high-grade mineralization at multiple targets,” Tony Makuch, Kirkland Lake’s president and CEO said in the release. “We are increasingly confident that we can establish a significant mining centre in the Northern Territory. With continued progress, we could be in a position to resume commercial operations in the Northern Territory as early as late February…”

The company’s current plan is to establish a number of mining centres feeding the 2.4-million-tonne-per-year Union Reefs mill. It is currently processing mineralization on a test basis at the site.

Next year, Kirkland Lake plans on additional drilling at Cosmo, Union Reefs and Pine Creek as it develops a mine plan for its Northern Territory holdings.

The Cosmo mine and Union Reefs mill were placed on care and maintenance in 2017.

Current Northern Territory reserves total 666,000 tonnes grading 5 g/t gold for a total of 107,000 oz.

(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)

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