Ardiden has cleared the way for drilling to commence at its 110,000-ounce Kasagiminnis gold deposit in Canada. The company has now received a permit to undertake exploration, completed its consultation with the first nation groups and engaged a drilling contractor to kick off its exploration program over the under-explored gold deposit during the current summer season.
A diamond rig is expected onsite within the next two weeks.
Ardiden Exploration Manager, Dan Grabiec said:
“Now that we have all the necessary permits, we are very much looking forward and moving quickly to commence our summer drilling campaign at our flagship Kasagiminnis Gold Deposit and thanks to our recent capital raising, preparing for a larger Winter programme. Ardiden is very confident of the drill contractor’s all-season drilling capacity and commitment to sample quality and safety standards.”
Ardiden’s Kasagiminnis deposit forms part of the company’s Pickle Lake gold project in northwest Ontario, an established mining jurisdiction in Canada. The company’s tenure covers more than 90km of strike and 664 square kilometres of highly prospective Archean greenstone that has previously demonstrated a rich endowment of gold.
Previous mining in the region has produced more than 3 million ounces of high-grade gold, with prominent local operations including the Golden Patricia mine in the west of the goldfield that produced over 600,000 ounces between 1988 and 1997 at an impressive grade of 15.2 g/t gold.
Ontario has presented as an increasingly fashionable address for gold exploration in recent years with notable entrants to the region including ASX-listed gold producer, Evolution Mining who purchased Newmont’s Red Lake gold mine in November of 2019 for a tidy for US$475 million. Operations around Red Lake, that is located around 175km to the east of Ardiden’s tenure, historically produced more than 30 million ounces of gold – providing a hint as to the potential of the region.
Ardiden’s Kasagiminnis gold deposit is the company’s flagship prospect and is centrally located within its tenure. The deposit already boasts a high-grade resource of 790,000 tonnes at 4.3 g/t gold, for 110,000 ounces, with the upcoming drilling program aimed at dramatically increasing the resource before the end of 2020.
Previous operators explored Kasagiminnis to a depth of around 280 metres, however Ardiden’s studies across the Ontario goldfields indicate that gold mineralisation at various operations tends to show good continuity and has been mined to depths of more than 1,200 metres across the field.
Ardiden’s short-term Exploration Target at Kasagiminnis is to outline a resource of 0.5-1.2 million ounces down to 500 metres depth, with drilling testing the deposit along 2km of strike. The first phase of drilling will utilise seven diamond drill holes to test the western extensions of the deposit, which will be followed by a further seven holes testing the depth extents of the mineralisation below Kasagiminnis as part of the Phase 2 program.
The company is also evaluating a number of other targets surrounding the Kasagiminnis deposit, with recent geophysics showing that the deposit forms part of a larger 5km long gold trend that has only been partially tested by modern exploration.
Interestingly, Ardiden has also identified a priority target to the south of the deposit where drilling returned 4.24 metres at an exciting 21.0 g/t gold – this outstanding result is yet to be followed up.
Ardiden’s exploration program in Canada continues to gain pace and with more than $4.5 million in the bank drilling ready to commence at Kasagiminnis, it looks to be an interesting few months ahead for Ardiden as it expands its flagship prospect and drills up a storm in the goldfields of Ontario.
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