By Jessica Smith
Brett Resources Inc.’s aggressive year-long exploration program at its Atikokan area Hammond Reef project has significantly expanded a historic low-grade gold deposit.
“We’re liking what we're seeing,” said president and CEO Thomas Hasek.
This summer’s drilling in the property’s A zone unearthed the best findings to date: 267 metres of 1.02 gram per tonne (g/t), indicating mineralization is thickening at depth. Drilling has also vastly increased previous historic interceptions of 70 m of one g/t discovered by Falconbridge, who drilled 60 holes in the area in the mid 1980s.
In a year, the Vancouver-based company has completed 77 drill holes totaling 102 metres, and constructed a 20-person mining camp at its northwestern Ontario property, located 22 km north of Atikokan.
The present $5 million program has earned Brett a 60 per cent interest in the project from Kinross Gold Corp., who has the option to buy back another 20 per cent stake in the property and fund the next stage of exploration.
Now approaching negotiations, Brett is hoping to assume 100 per cent ownership of the property, said Hasek.
In the meantime, exploration continues with one drill on the property.
“We’re quite happy with the results we’ve seen and with what we’re getting. The increase in the resource we anticipate out of the new information is going to be quite substantial,” said Hasek.
In fact, a previous N 43-101 non-compliant resource estimate of 2.6 million ounces contained in 86 million tonnes could even increase to 5 million ounces, he said.
This summer’s assay results have shown a slight increase from slightly under a gram per tonne to now averaging a more than a gram per tonne.
Highlights in the previously unexplored northeastern portion of the A zone on the western shore area of Mitta Lake include a higher grade interval of 40.5 m of 3.14 g/t within 120 m of 1.59 g/t intercept.
To confirm that the property’s A and 41 zones connect, drilling will continue this winter in the “Mitta Gap” a 1.1 km stretch, which includes a small lake and swamp area.
The numbers, while “not gangbusters but are very solid, very consistent and that’s very encouraging because what you don’t want in this kind of low-grade situation is high numbers with nugget effect, which aren’t really meaningful because they distort your data. But we’re getting fairly consistent numbers and we’re improving the grade.”
Brett will continue in-fill drilling with hopes of producing a resource estimate by March. The company will then move from exploration to developing a feasibility study, likely in a year’s time.
The gold occurs in fracture controlled quartz vein stockworks with minor fine pyrite in variably altered, foliated Archaen granitoids and mafic dikes, making it amenable to open-pit mining, especially given strong gold prices.
Currently exploring three of 10 km of favourable horizon, there remain a lot of unknowns, including turn-of-the-century high-grade workings, unexplored property along the northeast trend, and a newly acquired 160 hectare property, said Hasek.
“There is lots of ‘blue sky’ in the project yet. However, what we are developing is growing at a good rate.”
