Shore keeps its Bauer drills busy 2008-04-03 15:52 ET - Street Wire by Will Purcell Shore Gold Inc. is keeping its two big Bauer drills busy testing several big Saskatchewan kimberlites this year. The gridded mini-bulk tests yield lower diamond grades and values than underground tests, but Shore needs the data to produce resource estimates for its top projects. A resource estimate at Star will be a key part of a prefeasibility study at Star, expected by early summer. As well, drilling at Orion South will allow Shore to start a similar process there as well. The plan Shore's vice-president of exploration, Pieter du Plessis, said that Shore completed over 80 large diameter holes into the Star pipe and the Bauer drilling was done there for now. He said the company now had enough data to complete the resource estimate, but there is more drilling in the budget for Star later this year. It is uncertain if that work will take place. In the most likely plan, Shore would drill more holes into areas with grade uncertainty, most likely on the fringe of the big pipe. Mr. du Plessis said the two Bauer drills were now busy on Orion South, where the company is concurrently collecting a big underground bulk sample. He said the drill tests would provide Shore with a much wider picture of the diamond distribution within the massive kimberlite complex, which has several phases of rock with markedly different diamond populations. The former South African geologist said Shore would correlate the underground results with the large diameter holes in the same area. The company will then apply the results to the drill holes across the remainder of the body. As at Star, the goal is a complete, three-dimensional model of the diamond content of Orion South. Before Shore moved its drills to Orion South, the company punched a few quick holes into the more promising area on Orion North. Although the grades across much of that body seemed disappointing, the company did hit one zone of interest. If the latest tests in that area prove equally promising, Shore would dig a vertical shaft and collect a bulk sample from Orion North, something Mr. du Plessis said could occur "in the not too distant future." Spring has arrived, but the melting snow will not slow Shore's work. Gravel and sand act as a huge filter that rapidly drains water from the surface. The ground does briefly become muddy early in the season, when the frozen ground impedes the runoff. The project lies within the Fort a la Corne forestland, but trees are of little concern as big wildfires burned across the property three times in the past 15 years. The encouragement Shore has been slow to release the numbers from its large holes into Star. That prompted worries that the grades were lower than the bulk tests produced. The company still has not formally said much about its big holes, but its presentations clearly show the drill tests produced lower grades than the underground dig. According to Shore's presentations, the company is averaging about 0.105 carat per tonne with the Bauer rigs in Star's early Joli Fou kimberlite. It averaged 0.18 carat per tonne with its underground dig. The main difference occurs with diamonds weighing over 0.75 carats, so the value of the diamonds obtained by drilling would suffer as well. Mr. du Plessis said it was important to understand the Bauer tests were not representative of the real grades. Diamond loss and breakage problems are key reasons for lower grades, and those issues would have a significant impact on the diamond value as well. "One has to treat large diameter drilling results with caution, that is the bottom line," he added. So far, investors seem willing to buy the explanation. Shore closed down four cents to $3.75 Wednesday on 663,600 shares. |