Another interesting articleTemex Resources (TSX-V: TME) is operating in and around the world-class Timmins gold camp, which has produced over 65 million ounces in its history of gold production. Since acquiring its first gold project from Inmet in 2002 while gold languished at about one third of its present price, the company has initiated a joint venture with Goldcorp on its Whitney project, announced a substantial resource on its Juby project and discovered bonanza grades on its bluesky Latchford project. The company’s President and CEO Ian Campbell explains how his team got into this gold-rich district early, surrounded by some heavy hitters.
Resource Intelligence: Why did you choose the Timmins gold camp for exploration in particular?
Ian Campbell: We have two projects in that camp. At 65 million ounces this is Canada’s largest gold camp by ounces produced, by a long shot. We model ourselves after companies like Lake Shore Gold in Timmins, where they committed to the camp and are now going underground and doing an advanced underground exploration program on their mine on the west side of Timmins.
It seems like the more you explore around in the old mining camps, the more success you have. Lakeshore was in new territory in the sense that there was really no mine on the west side of Timmins, and by exploring a little bit deeper and making that commitment, it has turned out for them. They have over a million ounces and are scheduled to go to go into full production later this year.
RI: What is the premise of the deal you have with Goldcorp on the Whitney project?
IC: We have to spend $4 million to earn our 60% and we achieved that goal last year in June, and delivered them the data and the exercise notice of the option.
The exciting part about this project is that it hosts the Hallnor Mine—a multimillion ounce past producer, which is the highest grade past producing mine in Canada’s largest gold camp. The ownership is now with Goldcorp and we were able to leverage into it back in 2004/05.
RI: What did you find in that $4 million expenditure?
IC: We did a fair amount of drilling. As I said, the Hallnor Mine is a past producer, but there are also a number of other mines in the project area as well. Overall, the property has seen over 2. 5 million ounces of gold production, so we have some significant targets.
We explored the near-surface targets and have some fairly significant results that show us we require more drilling to test out the open pit potential. Based on the $1,000 plus gold price, everything has changed in the last number of years here. Being in Timmins with access to infrastructure doesn’t get any better.
We also did some deep drilling on the Hallnor. 1. 7 million ounces were mined from the Hallnor mine to levels of about 1,500 metres below surface. They stopped mining at what were property boundaries back in 1972. These boundaries don’t exist anymore, so we did some deep drilling which would have been across the previous boundary and sure enough we found extensions for some of these veins.
We also made a brand new discovery in the last number of holes that we drilled called the Q zone. That’s shallow to mid range depth, but we got some significant results there.
RI: Your Croxall project is also returning significant results. What have you completed and what is the plan for further exploration there?
IC: The Croxall property is located in the west Timmins mining district. We were able to get into that area back in May of 2009 by obtaining the option to earn a 100% interest in the property, which is about 2,400 acres. So far, we’ve drilled almost 3,000 metres in eight holes.
We’ve had some grades of up to 1 g/t over 15 metres and narrower sections of higher grade. At this early stage, that was very good news. We’ve only got one hole down to 300 metres, but we’ve hit the right rock types and have seen some visible gold. We view it as a significant sniff to tell us that we need to continue drilling and to drill a little bit deeper. So, we plan to double our existing drilling there later this year—up to about sixteen holes.
Lakeshore Gold is contiguous to the west of us. The area is really heating up with lots of other juniors exploring nearby.
RI: What is your drill program for 2010?
IC: We would like to do a minimum of 10,000 metres on the Whitney project and another 5,000 metres of drilling on the Croxall project.
RI: Juby is your most advanced project. It’s 100% owned and you’ve got resources on it. Let’s talk a bit about what got you to that stage of exploration.
IC: Inmet completed 25 widely spaced drill holes and hit gold on every hole and they believed the property had a million ounce potential. We were able to purchase it for $250,000 dollars and 100,000 shares of Temex.
It’s an interesting area, because the area had been closed to staking for 26 years due to First Nations land claims and then it came open for staking in 1996. As a result, the area has seen relatively little modern exploration but is very similar in geology to Kirkland Lake, which is a highly productive mining camp as well. We decided to drill off the Juby main zone and to date have outlined NI 43-101 compliant resources of 479,000 gold ounces of indicated ore at 1. 72 g/t Au and a further inferred resource of 186,000 gold ounces. Both are open for expansion as well.
Given the current gold price, which was around $400 per ounce when we last drilled Juby we are going to update the NI 43-101 resource utilizing a lower cutoff grade, and we expect that should give us a larger resource.
RI: You also have some bluesky potential at your Latchford project.
IC: Yes, we discovered Latchford when we were exploring for kimberlites. Our prospector was out inspecting a target and came back with a boulder containing spectacular gold mineralization—200 ounces per tonne. Every year we devote some money to that. It’s high risk, but it’s going to be high reward if we ever discover where that boulder came from.
RI: How should investors evaluate Temex Resources as an investment?
IC: We are a precious metals exploration company that offers big upside at any moment from the next drill hole while at the same time reducing the downside risk by always adding ounces onto the books on our Juby and Whitney gold projects. We’ve also got a lot of bluesky potential on our Croxall and Latchford projects. If you like precious metals and you like this prolific gold district in northeastern Ontario where we have committed to discovery, then we’re an excellent option for investors.
source: https://golddrillresults.net/blog/?p=493