Maple Gold Mines (MGM.V) has announced it has started its fully-funded diamond drill program on the Douay and Joutel gold projects on the Casa Berardi – Douay gold trend in Quebec. The initial 30,000 meters of drilling, budgeted at C$10M, will consist of a 20,000 meter phase II drill program at Douay to follow up on recent exploration successes at the Nika and 531 zones while the drill bit will also test the gold mineralization below the current mineralization and pit shell. The down-plunge extensions will be drill-tested up to a 1,000 meters below surface.
A second batch of drilling, to the tune of 10,000 meters, will be completed at Joutel to extend the high-grade gold mineralization along the Eagle-Telbel mine trend.
This drill program follows up on the results of the 12,240 meter Phase I drill program at Douay in the first half of this year, and the current 30,000 meter drill program is the largest drill program in the company’s history.
We recently had a chat with CEO Kiran Patankar, and it now feels like the company finally has good leadership after the past decade where sub-optimal decisions were taken by previous management. Being able to raise in excess of C$20M this year and announcing the largest drill program in the history of the company is a first but important step to regain the trust from the market and (re-?) establish the credibility of the company. The company’s history appears to be holding the share price back as it is remarkable to see a resource of in excess of 3 million ounces of gold (0.5Moz in the indicated resource category and 2.5 million ounces of gold in the inferred resource category) in mining-friendly Quebec at a market capitalization of just C$100M.
Disclosure: The author has no position in Maple Gold Mines but may initiate a long position in the near future. 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.
