Sudbury’s Wallbridge Mining Company is dewatering a former gold mine in northwestern Quebec in preparation to take a bulk sample by year’s end.
The company said in a Feb. 27 news release that they’ve started removing water from the open pit and former underground mine workings at its Fenelon Gold Property, near the Ontario border.
The 1,052-hectare property is in the same Abitibi region gold trend that hosts the Detour Lake gold mine.
An underground mining contractor has been selected and will get busy to begin rehabilitation of the mine ramp with underground development work starting in the second quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, Wallbridge is looking to secure the capital required to extract the bulk sample, estimated to be between 30,000 and 35,000 tonnes of mineralized material.
The company has about 5,000 to 8,000 metres of underground exploration drilling planned for this year with an aim on expanding its resource base along strike and at depth.
An additional 10,000 metres will be drilled off from surface in the latter half of this year to follow known mineralized zones.
Since acquiring the property in late 2016, Wallbridge has done more than 6,300 metres of exploration drilling. Last year, the company released a positive prefeasibility study for Fenelon showing a measured and indicated resource of 38,000 ounces of gold, contained in 91,000 tonnes, grading 12.97 grams per tonne.
The company expects to make a formal production decision this year.
