Sudbury’s Wallbridge Mining has signed a purchase agreement and made the first payment to Balmoral Resources to acquire a western Quebec gold property for $3.7 million.
Wallbridge considers the Fenelon Gold Property an advanced stage project with near-term production potential.
The 1,052-hectare property is located 75 kilometres northwest of the town of Matagami.
Wallbridge issued $200,000 worth of its common shares and has paid the first $200,000 cash installment.
In an Aug. 2 news release, company president Marz Kord said making the first payment puts them closer to permitting the high-grade, scalable Discovery Zone deposit on the property which contains some underground workings.
After the final payment is made in September, Kord said their goal is dewater the underground workings and start underground exploration.
The company plans to make a production decision once a feasibility study is wrapped up in early 2017.
“Exploration opportunities at Fenelon include open mineralized zones close to the existing underground workings and resource as well as high grade drill intersections at depth and along trend,” said Kord.
“Our initial focus will be towards initial production and expanding the deposit close to the existing workings, and then continuing to expand gold mineralized zones along strike and to depth."
The results from more than 50,000 metres of drilling and from two bulk samples taken at the deposit suggests there is potential to expand the gold resource.
An updated measured and indicated mineral resource estimate for the Discovery Zone is 91,000 tonnes grading 12.97 grams per tonne (g/t) gold containing 38,000 ounces of gold.
A large proportion of the resource is located in close proximity to existing underground workings at a shallow depth.
