By Nick Stewart
Despite having acquired the Rainy River Project property 80 kilometres south of Kenora just two years ago, Rainy River Resources’ 2006 exploration results have already caught the eye of a few potential suitors.
“This is a pretty serious project,” says Nelson Baker, president.
“It’s one that’s caught the interest of several majors, who have said they would love to talk to us when we’re ready.”
When drilling between the property’s 17 Zone and the Beaver Pond Zone, a relatively untouched area, the company turned up 5.42 grams of gold per tonne over 43 metres, with a core interval of 17.67 grams of gold per tonne over 9.50 metres.
This represented the best gold intersection turned up on the property to date. What’s more, the breadth and style of visible gold within the interval indicated a distinct, separate mineralized zone, now called the ODM Zone. This discovery is hosted in the same three-kilometre gold trend as the 17 Zone.
Further drilling through the winter months on the ODM Zone turned up results such as hole NR06-107, which evidenced 22.6 metres grading 17.02 grams per tonne of gold, while NR06-111 has shown 23.5 metres grading 10.63 grams per tonne of gold.
Findings in the ODM Zone thus far have been above the 100-metre level, a fact Baker says to be financially significant.
“It means you can make a hell of a lot of money by open pit mining with those grades because the cost of open pit mining is quite low compared to underground mining,” he says. “The grades we’re intersecting there would support an underground operation, however.”
Baker says Rainy River Resources has no intention of following in the path of such companies as FNX by mining the site themselves. Rather than graduate from a junior to a mid-tier, he says he is content to see the company remain as-is, allowing other companies to mine their discoveries while Rainy River Resources continues to leverage its technical strengths.
“We want to keep being an exploration company. We’re good at identifying areas that need exploring and at uncovering potential for new discoveries, and we want to keep pursuing that.”
Having spent nearly $7 million in exploration in 2006, the company is looking to spend a similar amount in 2007.
Drilling activity on the property will continue into the new year, with three drill rigs continuing to work across the 17 Zone and ODM Zone.
In the meantime, the company is waiting for results for four more holes drilled in the ODM Zone, where this first round of drilling is likely to continue steadily until the end of June.
The company also plans to perform drilling in order to continue exploring the potential within the three-kilometre gold trend, and to begin examining additional, potentially mineralized targets in other areas of the property.
Regardless of what the future has in store for the site, Baker says existing exploration results are promising enough to give him hope for a potential gold camp to be established.
“Not many companies are getting these kinds of widths and grades in Canada,” says Nelson Baker.
“I think there’s a very, very good chance we can establish a commercially viable deposit there, or maybe more than one.”
