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The company’s shares in Sydney were suspended on Thursday, after tumbling 40% since news of the detention of CEO Terry Holohan.
The most recent exploration results from Probe Metals’ 2020 drill program at its Val-d’Or East property hit near-surface gold mineralization around existing resources and discovered new gold zones around the Pascalis trend. The company has released assay results for 36 holes completed in the Pascalis area.
This drilling led to the discovery of two new gold zones – one southeast of the New Beliveau deposit, and the other 300 metres north of the North Zone deposit.
Drill highlights from the zone in the southeast include 26.4 metres of 1.4 g/t gold from 26.6 metres; 0.6 metre of 94.1 g/t gold starting at 18.3 metres; and 11 metres of 1.3 g/t gold from 256 metres.
Notable intercepts from the new area to the north include 6.2 metres of 3.6 g/t gold from 43 metres; and 7.1 metres of 1.9 g/t gold starting at 48.4 metres.
Drilling around existing resources, 600 metres to the south of the historic New Beliveau mine, hit 11 metres of 1.7 g/t gold from 164 metres.
In a release, David Palmer, the company’s president and CEO, noted that this year’s drill program is aimed at tracing new zones of gold mineralization, by following the known gold systems.
Val-d’Or East features two known parallel gold trends, Courvan and Pascalis, with potential for additional parallel trends
“We have been very successful this year with numerous new zones being discovered surrounding our gold resources at Pascalis, Courvan Monique and on the Cadillac Break East property. The main takeaway from our 2020 program is that we still have a tremendous amount of exploration upside and discovery potential on the property.”
Palmer added that, as the company prepares to deliver a resource update for the project next year, the recent gold discoveries should provide Probe with a pipeline of drill targets.
With four drills working on Pascalis, and 14,000 metres still to be completed by year-end, all of the results from this year will be incorporated into the first-quarter resource update.
The geology and geometry of the new zones appears to be similar to that of those already along the Pascalis trend.
In a note to investors, Andrew Mikitchook of BMO Capital Markets wrote that: “Probe continues to demonstrate the success of its exploration and use of modern geophysics to identify new gold zones on its property portfolio.” With these most recent results, the analyst sees potential for “further resource growth ahead of the Q1/21 resource estimate update.” Mikitchook has an ‘outperform’ rating and a C$2.5 target price on the stock.
Barry Allan of Laurentian Bank Securities considers these latest results “positive” and maintains his view that “PRB are developing the critical mass within the Val-d’Or East project to support a viable hub-and-spoke strategy using the Beliveau deposit as the core anchor for a redevelopment strategy to exploit satellite resources within the Val-d’Or East project.”
Allan has a ‘buy’ rating and C$5 price target for the company.
Val-d’Or East features two known parallel gold trends, Courvan and Pascalis, with potential for additional parallel trends.
In September 2019, Probe tabled an updated resource estimate, with total measured and indicated resources of 14.6 million tonnes, grading 1.85 g/t gold, for a total of 866,300 gold oz. Additional inferred resources stand at 37.9 million tonnes at 1.96 g/t gold for 2.4 million oz. of gold.
These resources include both pit-constrained and underground components, and are contained within three deposits along the Pascalis trend, five along Courvan, and also include resources at Lapaska and Monique.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)
