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O3 Mining makes new gold discovery at Golden Bridge area of Marban project, which could become new open pit resource

Published: 12:45 04 Feb 2021 GMT

O3 Mining Inc -
Notably, three of these holes have defined a new zone called the Golden Bridge area around 175m by 100m wide, with assays including 1.2 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 9.7m

O3 Mining Inc (CVE:OIII) (OTCMKTS:OQMGF) has reported the latest drill results from its flagship Marban project on the Malartic property in Québec, including a new gold discovery which could become a new open pitable resource.

The company is amid a 150,000 metre (m) drill campaign at its Alpha and Marban projects, and at Marban, 20,591 metres (m) of a 50,000m program have been sunk since August last year, in a bid to test extensions outside the preliminary economic assessment (PEA) pit area.

READ:O3 Mining set to start pre-feasibility study for Marban project this year as it outlines aims for 2021

The focus of the drill bit has been on the Kierens, Kierens NW, Gold Hawk, Orion, MK, North Shear, North, and Marban NE zones and the latest assays hail from seven holes.

Notably, three of these have defined a new zone called the Golden Bridge area around 175m by 100m wide, with assays including 1.2 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 9.7m in one hole, and 2 g/t gold over 5.4m in another.

"O3 Mining believes that the near-surface Golden Bridge zone offers the potential to generate a new open-pit resource, just 200 metres from the PEA Norlartic pit," the company said in a statement.

Other drill highlights included 34.8 g/t gold over 1.2m in one hole near-surface inside the Kierens PEA pit shell and 1.5 g/t  gold over 6.3m in another near-surface hole outside that shell.

"Late last year, we published a positive PEA on Marban and committed to making it even better through continued exploration," O3's CEO José Vizquerra told investors.

"Drilling has successfully intercepted mineralization in new areas including what we think is a new parallel structure to Marban called Golden Bridge, which after more work, could be brought into the project economics and further add to the benefits of a future production scenario."

Last September, a PEA carried out by Ausenco for Marban envisioned an 11,000 tonnes per day (tpd) open pit operation with production spanning 15.2 years, with a positive after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 25.2% and an after-tax net present value (NPV) of C$423 million.

Initial capital (CAPEX) was pegged at C$256 million, and an after-tax payback period of four years.

03 noted that assay results from 27 drill holes at Marban are still pending and now, due to winter conditions, the focus will shift over to the Marbenite Deep, Marban East Deep (both adjacent to Marban pit) as well as at North North and North Shear.

Follow-up drilling on the latest intercepts will occur during the summer as the company prioritizes areas only accessible during winter, it added.

Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com

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