Eastmain Resources: One of Their Most Successful Quarters To Date
September 16th, 2008
Editor’s Note: Among the terminally ill and battered junior resource sector, Eastmain Resources (ER-TSX $1.08) is quite healthy. As you can see from their third quarter report, they are not only well-financed but continue to have great success on the drill front. I have often spoken of management’s methodical way of developing its assets and that has paid off nicely, especially when you look at other juniors. Other than a sharp decline in metal prices and something unforeseen on the corporate front, the only real concern I have with ER is one of its corporate partners could make a takeover move before one could see the full potential reward. I guess in this market that should only be the case with the rest of one’s holdings.
In one of the most successful quarters to date your Company increased its treasury to over $20M. Through private placement investments, Eastmain has received endorsement for its exploration efforts once again from it’s major partner Goldcorp, and from several significant institutional banks and investment funds. By choosing to improve Eastmain’s financial position while higher gold prices sustained higher share price and volumes, we have secured our ongoing exploration plans for the next several years. Drilling at Clearwater continues to uncover more gold, while exploration of other earlier stage projects provides our shareholders with opportunity for new discoveries.
Clearwater Project- Eau Claire Deposit
Our near-term objective at Clearwater is to “drill under metal” to discover new deposits and add near surface, high-grade, quality ounces that can be mined at low cost. In an effort to expand the lateral and vertical extent of the gold deposit and to define high-grade measured resources, which might be extracted by open pit methods, diamond drilling is on-going at Eau Claire.
Previous drilling outlined a substantial gold-bearing “footprint” for a length of 1.5 kilometres and to a depth of 900 metres. Current drilling is systematically testing the deposit over a length of 600 metres and to a vertical depth of up to 300 metres, utilizing large-diameter HQ core in closely-spaced drill holes.
To date, this definition drilling has demonstrated excellent continuity of the main group of veins both laterally and vertically. 29 holes (ER08-113 to ER08-141) have been completed for approximately 5,400 metres. Visible gold has been observed in over 50 veins from 23 different holes. Similar visible gold intercepts observed in 55 veins drilled during the 2007 program contained an average of 70.74 g/t gold or 2.07 ounces per ton. Typically gold occurs as a fine dusting within the veins, ranging from isolated grains to multiple clusters from < 1mm to 2 mm in size. The current program has also been successful in the discovery of a new vein series (T Vein) containing visible gold, which lies north or footwall to the deposit.
Results to date demonstrate that the larger diameter core combined with closer-spaced drill holes has delineated more gold. Drilling completed during the 2007 program intersected 100 vein intersections containing an average grade of 28.03 g/t gold or 0.82 ounces per ton over 1.25 metres, including 50 vein intersections with an average grade of 50.01 g/t gold or 1.46 ounces per ton. Highlights from 2007 included hole ER07-87, which assayed 79.76 g/t gold or 2.33 ounces per ton across 3.5 metres and ER07-98, which intersected a metre-wide vein at 1,313 g/t gold or 38.35 ounces per ton, including one halfmetre sample at 2,540 g/t gold or 74.2 ounces per ton.