Further consolidation in the SHINING TREE area 2017 has been a very busy year for mining companies with an important focus on the Shining Tree area in Ontario, Canada.
In March 2017, IamGold optioned the Jumping Moose and Elephant Head projects , located near the Cot Gold project, from Transition Metals/Canadian Gold Miner.
In June 2017, Platinex expanded their holdings in the Shining Tree area to 876 claims covering 14000 hectares.
In November 2017 , Imetal Resources announced some interesting results regarding their Phase 1 exploration program on their Gowganda West project.
There is no doubt that 2018 will be at least as busy.
Early January , Orefinders Resources closed 3 acquisitions , consolidating different continuous projects , located adjacent at the northern border of Tahoe Resources Juby Gold Project.
Based on robust economics from the PFS, IamGold has decided to move forward with the FS on their Cot Gold project, to be completed during H2 of 2018.
In spite of operational challenges and reduced exploration expenses, Tahoe Resources will nevertheless start drilling early 2018 on their Juby Gold project.
Given the similarities between the Cot Gold and Juby Gold projects, proven near surface gold resources and both suitable for open pit mining, it is very probable that further consolidation is expected and that the area is expected to be ( further ) developed by one large mining group with a view of one very large open pit operation with central mill facility.
In this respect , open pit potential , Orefinders Resources has shown some very interesting near surface gold intercepts from recent/compliant drilling on the different zones within their consolidated Knight ( formerly called Shining Tree ) project :
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13.3 gpt Gold (11.0 gpt if cut to 31.1 gpt) over 82.5 metres
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18.2 gpt Gold (7.9 gpt if cut to 31.1 gpt) over 65.7 metres and 4.61 gpt Gold (3.5 gpt if cut to 31.1 gpt) over 79.6 metres
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1.01 gpt Gold over 192.0 metres, including 5.04 gpt Gold over 24.4 metres
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1.15 gpt Gold over 280 metres, including 5.2 gpt Gold over 3.44 metres, 3.2 gpt Gold over 5.47 and 3.4 gpt Gold over 41 metres
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1.52 gpt Gold over 75.5 metres
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2.20 gpt Gold over 34.50 metres including 40.0 gpt Gold over 1.0 metre
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1.5 gpt Gold over 80.9 metres
So I am really curious to see how Orefinders Resources will move their Knight project forward the coming months. Given the historic resources and the 30000 meter drilling , they should be able to move quickly towards a maiden and compliant near surface , open pit resource. Also given the amount of development work that has been done so far ( internal scoping environmental studies, engineering ) , a near term production scenario on the Minto zone should be possible.
Interesting days ahead for the companies actively involved in the Shining Tree area and the shareholders looking for increasing value of their investments.