- Benz Mining (BZ) has activated a second drill rig at its Eastmain project
- The company’s second rig was originally due to arrive at the site in February but was delayed
- The Eastmain Gold Project is situated within the Upper Eastmain Greenstone Belt in Quebec
- Having the second rig operational doubles the drilling capacity at the Eastmain project
- Shares of Benz Mining are up 9.09 on the day, and trading at C$0.84 at 11:33 am ET
Benz Mining (BZ) has activated a second drill rig at its Eastmain project.
The company’s second rig was originally due to arrive at the site in February but was delayed mostly due to COVID-19 restrictions in Canada and rig and driller availability pressure from increased winter drilling activities.
The Eastmain Gold Project is situated within the Upper Eastmain Greenstone Belt in Quebec.
Having the second rig operational doubles the drilling capacity at the Eastmain project.
The company has 40,000 metres of drilling budgeted for 2021 that still has to be undertaken.
Benz Mining expects to receive its first results from 2021 drilling assays shortly.
All of the laboratory rejects (the fraction of samples unused in the assays process) from the 2020 drilling campaign have been sent to Australia to be analysed by PhotonAssay.
The assay method is non-destructive and is better suited to systems where gold is nuggetty. There are multiple occurrences of coarse gold at Eastmain. The analytical methodology is an environmentally friendly replacement for fire assay and allows for a more accurate measurement of gold grades where coarse gold is present.
This technology is not yet available in North America.
Benz Mining CEO Xavier Braud remarked,
“The second rig will certainly help us accelerate our efforts at Eastmain but, more importantly, it will allow us more flexibility to balance our drilling between extensional, infill, step-out and regional drilling.
We still have multiple untested and undertested targets from our 2020 fixed loop and down-hole electromagnetic surveys and we are still generating more targets.
Additionally, several new discoveries we made last year need follow-up. We have recently completed the acquisition of 56 line-km of fixed loop EM and we are looking forward to updating the market on those surveys shortly.
The pressure on laboratories and services companies means that we have had to wait longer than expected to get results but we believe that we can restart the news flow from Eastmain where we have been incredibly active since January.
We are well on track to continue growing the footprint of the Eastmain project in line with the discovery rate we have had for the past 12 months.”
Shares of Benz Mining are up 9.09 on the day, and trading at C$0.84 at 11:33 am ET.
