NR's Going Fwd Next on the NR calendar, Bonanza Ledge Mine plan; wonder how long that will be. Several newsy major developments expected each quarter going forward.
(from the April 21st NR with highlights and comments)
Production at Bonanza Ledge and BC Vein
In the first quarter of 2016, Barkerville completed an underground mine plan for the balance of Bonanza Ledge ore and development of BC Vein ore which will be accessed from the same infrastructure. Geotechnical drilling was also completed on Bonanza Ledge. This plan will be submitted to the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines (“BCMEM”) this quarter. Tenders have been submitted to several mine contractors and environmental work is also underway with underground development planned by the third quarter 2016. Upgrades and maintenance continues at the Company’s QR Mill where the ore will be processed. Details on production will be provided upon approval of the mine plan and environmental studies by the BCMEM.
This is the next item on my watchlist
Exploration 2016
The Company added over 80,000 hectares of additional exploration lands to its current extensive property package in the Cariboo Mining District in Q1. After a detailed regional and localized evaluation by our exploration team, a substantial drilling program on Island Mountain adjacent to the Cow Mountain Resource was recommended. In addition, an airborne geophysical magnetic and electromagnetic survey has been tendered and will commence in Q2 along with geochemical surveys, geological mapping and prospecting. Priority targets generated from this program will be drill tested in the latter part of 2016.
Cow Mountain Update
Further to the Company’s news release dated March 31, 2015, the Multiple Indicator Kriging (MIK) Cow Mountain resource estimate performed by Snowden Mining Industry Consultants of Vancouver, British Columbia reported an Indicated Resource of 2.8Moz (35.8M tonnes at 2.4 g/t gold) and Inferred Resources of 2.0Moz (27.5M tonnes at 2.3 g/t gold) at a 0.5 g/t gold block cut-off. The Company’s technical staff, as well as third party consultants, have been recompiling and validating the Cow Mountain databases with the aim of establishing a robust, geologically constrained resource model on which future economic considerations will be based. This new, geologically controlled estimate is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2016.
Alongside the aforementioned studies, the Company has recently completed 18,357 metres of its Phase I diamond drilling program on Cow Mountain designed to upgrade Inferred and Indicated gold resources within a conceptual open pit. Drilling has been halted temporarily due to seasonal melt conditions and the Phase II campaign is scheduled to begin once environmental conditions allow. The 41,000 metre Phase II program will take into account results from Phase I and will be utilized to further optimize the economics of the conceptual open pit. The second phase will also encompass geotechnical drilling for the purposes of optimizing pit walls as well as collection of fresh material for detailed metallurgical test work.
Why didn't they release the results of Phase I results? Will they release Phase II results or just use them for the resource upgrade w/o publishing?