Integra Resources Corp. (TSX-V: ITR) (NYSE American: ITRG) saw new drill results coming from its southwestern Idaho drill program that could potentially extend the heap leach mine life.
On Thursday, the company announced additional results from its DeLamar Project drill program that was designed to test the estimated 60 million tonnes of mineralized material that was stockpiled and/ or used as a backfill by previous operators.
These included 20 additional drill holes representing 825 meters from the 11,000-meter stockpile drill program. The company has mined a total of 10,164 meters in 262 drill holes as part of the program.
“The stockpile and backfill drill results announced today include long intervals of gold-equivalent grades that are similar to, if not better than, other in-situ targets drilled at the project,” Integra CEO George Salamis said in a statement.
“This mineralized material was previously mined by past operators and stockpiled and/or used as backfill at DeLamar and Florida Mountain because it fell below the mill cut-off grade.”
He added that the DeLamar mine could potentially produce more gold and silver and increase the mine’s lifespan through the transformation of existing materials.
The company plans to conduct a resource estimate for the stockpiles/backfill in Q2 2023 and submit a Mine Plan of Operations to the Bureau of Land Management in the second half of the year.
Additionally, if the merger between Integra and Millennial Precious Metals Corp. (TSX-V: MPM) (OTCQB: MLPMF) is completed and all necessary approvals are obtained, it has the potential to create a development-stage company with one of the largest resource endowments in the Great Basin. Integra announced the merger agreement end of February.
Read more: Integra Resources and Millennial Precious merge, create top Great Basin precious metals firm
Read more: Integra Resources DeLamar stockpile drill program results could extend heap leach mine life
Drill results from the DeLamar stockpile and backfill drill program include:
- NDM-22-051: 0.32 g/t Au and 19.05 g/t Ag (0.57 g/t AuEq) over 50.30 m
- NDM-22-142: 0.26 g/t Au and 26.28 g/t Ag (0.60 g/t AuEq) over 28.96 m
- WD1-22-310: 0.26 g/t Au and 15.59 g/t Ag (0.46 g/t AuEq) over 38.10 m
- WD1-22-322: 0.27 g/t Au and 12.95 g/t Ag (0.44 g/t AuEq) over 33.53 m
- WD2-23-159: 0.19 g/t Au and 18.14 g/t Ag (0.43 g/t AuEq) over 50.29 m
Table via Integra.
Integra also announced Florida Mountain drill results from the Jacobs Gulch stockpile which is consistent with the company’s preliminary grade modelling.
Drill results from Florida Mountain stockpile and backfill drill program include:
- JG-23-109: 0.62 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) and 9.54 g/t silver (Ag) (0.74 g/t gold equivalent (AuEq)) over 76.20 meters, including 7.30 g/t Au and 9.13 g/t Ag (7.42 g/t AuEq) over 1.53 m
- JG-23-064: 0.37 g/t Au and 9.44 g/t Ag (0.49 g/t AuEq) over 53.34 m
- JG-23-033: 0.46 g/t Au and 13.24 g/t Ag (0.63 g/t AuEq) over 32.00 m
- TT-23-014: 0.35 g/t Au and 7.19 g/t Ag (0.45 g/t AuEq) over 59.44 m
- JG-23-052: 0.39 g/t Au and 9.03 g/t Ag (0.51 g/t AuEq) over 39.62 m
Cyanide shake analysis is not performed on Florida Mountain samples. The company said gold occurrences in Florida Mountain material can often be coarse in nature, making comparisons between cyanide shake analyses and fire assays unreliable.
Once pulverized, as per any cyanide shake procedure, all Florida Mountain materials show high recoveries by cyanidation, rendering cyanide shake analysis unreliable for differentiating between ores that can be heap leached and those requiring grinding to achieve high recoveries.
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Situated about 100 miles from Boise, the DeLamar project spans 8,673 hectares in the southwestern region of Idaho.
The project encompasses the former Kinross’ DeLamar Mine, which shut down in 1998 due to low precious metal values, after yielding 1.3 million ounces of gold and 70 million ounces of silver.
Some Canadian exploration companies based in Vancouver are also looking at the Great Basin given its potential. Last month, NevGold Corp. (TSXV:NAU) (OTCQX:NAUFF) (Frankfurt:5E50) submitted an exploration plan of operations (EPO) to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its Limousine Butte Project in Nevada.
Other companies operating in the Great Basin include Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) (TSX: NGT), Barrick Gold Corporation (TSX: ABX) (NYSE: GOLD), Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX: K, NYSE: KGC), Hecla Mining Company (NYSE: HL), Coeur Mining, Inc.(NYSE: CDE) and SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ: SSRM) (TSX: SSRM) (ASX: SSR).
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