Maple Gold Mines (MGM.V) has released an updated resource calculation on its flagship Douay/Joutel project in Quebec. The pit-constrained resource at Douay now contains 731,000 ounces of gold in the indicated resource category and an additional 2.7 million ounces of gold in the inferred category with the resource grade of the latter coming in at 0.77 g/t (compared to 0.94 g/t in the previous resource). While 0.77 g/t should be fine in the current gold price climate, it is lower than we had expected but that’s mainly due to the lower cutoff grade of 0.35 g/t versus 0.45 g/t in 2022. Using the 0.35 g/t cutoff grade in the 2022 resource calculation, the Douay open pit contained 2.35 million ounces at 0.81 g/t gold.
The combined resource now also includes the two underground areas on the Douay and Joutel zones with respectively 608,000 ounces just over 1.5 g/t gold and 1.12 million ounces at an average grade of around 4.15 g/t across the indicated and inferred resource categories.
The updated resource is a substantial improvement from the 2022 resource but it’s also important to realize that since the cutoff date for the 2026 resource, a total of 26,000 meters of additional drilling has been completed, and those results did not make it into the resource calculation. An additional 6,000 meters of drilling has been approved which means that within the next few months, Maple Gold Mines will be sitting on in excess of 30,000 meters of drilling data that was not incorporated in the resource.
Disclosure: The author has a small long position in Maple Gold Mines. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.
