Gold exploration in Canada continues to be dominated by the province of Ontario, where the precious metal was the most sought-after mineral in 2021.
Roughly C$626 million was spent on exploration, amounting to over 70 per cent of the province’s exploration spending.
All of this is to say: gold exploration is hot, and companies in the precious metals space continue to make strides in the path toward production. Meet Red Pine Exploration Inc. (TSXV:RPX, OTCQB:RDEXF, Forum), one such company that is actively involved in the identification, acquisition and development of properties in Ontario.
Headquartered out of Toronto, Ontario, Red Pine Exploration is focused on its flagship Wawa Gold Project, which sits roughly 2 km southeast of Wawa, Ontario.
The company has been actively involved in the project for over seven years and, most recently, spent all of 2022 doing continuous drilling.
The Wawa Gold Project
Located in the Michipicoten Greenstone Belt, the Wawa Gold Project sits on an underexplored extension of the Abitibi. Within the region, Red Pine Exploration sits in good company with top gold companies such as Goldcorp, IAMGOLD, Alamos, New Gold, Newmont, Argonaut, and Equinox, having conducted previous activity along the belt.
Spanning 7,031 hectares, the Wawa Gold Project includes 122 patents and 301 mining claims and is accessible year-round from Highway 101. Within the property are two mineral deposits — Surluga and Minto Mine South —while previous exploration history has included numerous gold mines and production of over 12,000 hectares.
To date, the largest gold deposit has been the Surluga deposit, which has 252 surface holes totalling 45,346 meters and 1,339 underground holes totalling 41,753 meters.
Red Pine Exploration previously had a 43-101 technical report done on the project in 2019 that included over 700,000 ounces of gold for the Surluga Deposit and the Minto Mine Deposit combined at an average grade of > 5 g/t (indicated and inferred) gold.
Fast forward to 2022. The company told The Market Herald Canada it had continuously drilled throughout the year, which enabled Red Pine to complete approximately 38,000 meters of exploration drilling on the property.
“Our goal was to prove that the mineralization that forms part of the Surluga and Minto deposits extends beyond the footprint that [the company] currently has,” the company told The Market Herald Canada. “It is a simple project wherein [the company] had a resource, and our goal was to prove that [the company] has more of that resource.”
Throughout 2022, some of the company’s drill program results include:
- Drilling identified high-grade gold exploration targets that could grow the current resource: (1) Jubilee Shear Zone beyond the current resource of the Surluga Deposit, including the Surluga South and North discoveries, (2) Minto Mine Shear Zone beyond the current resource of the Minto Deposit, (3) Minto B Shear Zone, (4) Grace/Nyman Shear System, (5) Parkhill #4 Shear Zone, (6) Hornblende Shear Zone (and satellite shear zones between Hornblende and Jubilee) and (7) Jubilee Shear Zone south of Parkhill Fault
- Discovery of near-surface high-grade Sadowski Gold Zone, a new mineralized zone with an intersection of 24.8 g/t gold over 1.15 meters, an intersection of 13.95 g/t gold over 4.48 meters core length (“CL”) including 29.29 g/t gold over 2.02 meters (CL)
- Extension of the Minto Structure with an intersection of 109.37g/t over 2.68 meters true width (“TW”); the best intersection to date in the Minto Vein
- Gold mineralization that is forming the Minto Mine deposit extended to depth in the Jubilee Shear Zone; over 550 meters of vertical depth
- Down plunge drilling in the Surluga South Discovery; produced significantly higher grades with an intersect in the Jubilee Shear Zone at 25.73 g/t gold over 4.78 meters (TW), with an extension over 500 meters down-dip of the resource at 3.08 g/t gold over 55.66 meters (TW) in the Jubilee Shear Zone
- Confirmation of high-grade gold mineralization 440 meters down plunge of the boundary of the Surluga resource, with an intersection of 4.66 g/t gold over 12.24 meters (TW) in the Jubilee Shear Zone, including 24.1 g/t gold over 0.68 meters (TW) and 14.68 g/t gold over 1.94 meters (TW)
- Discovery of significant mineralization 140 meters down-dip of the resource boundary in the northern part of the Surluga deposit; starting approximately 240 meters vertical depth, the Surluga North Discovery has the potential to further expand the current resource of the Surluga Deposit, intersecting a mineralized envelope covering 27.26 meters estimated true width (TW) in the Jubilee Shear Zone with 18.21 g/t gold over 1.95 meters (TW), 3.90 g/t gold over 4.47 meters (TW) including 18.14 g/t gold over 0.82 meters (TW)
2022-2023 Exploration Program
Moving into 2023, the company is funded to complete an exploration program this year at its Wawa Gold Project and released drilling results from the Surluga deposit in December.
Highlights included:
- Surluga North: High-grade mineralization occurring up to 325 meters away from the current resource boundary in the Surluga North area with the zone open down-dip and longitudinally north and south; Intersection of 11.06 g/t gold over 4 meters, including 20.80 g/t gold over 2 meters, in the Surluga North discovery
- Surluga South: Assay pending for new and shallow network of mineralized quartz veins discovered in SD-22-379A with visible gold observed in two separate veins
- Jubilee Shear Zone: Observation of visible gold in a quartz vein in the Jubilee Shear Zone in SD-22-379A that is located at the outer edge of the Surluga South discovery, indicating that the mineralization in the Jubilee sheer zone (JSZ) continues to depth
- Jubilee Shear Zone south of the Parkhill Fault: Confirmed JSZ over an additional strike length of 1.8 km – for a total of more than 6 km of the gold-bearing structure.
- Discovery of 42.95 g/t gold over 1.92 meters, including 85.72 g/t over 0.96 meters, in the Jubilee Shear Zone south of the Parkhill Fault in JS-22-368 Gold mineralization in JS-22-387 in the Jubilee Shear Zone, located 1.2 km north of JS-22-368.
Visual gold has been identified in six of the 12 holes (assays pending) completed at the Surluga North, South and in three holes in the Darwin-Grace targets
In line with this, Red Pine Exploration kicked off the new year by reporting its thickest high-grade intersection in the hanging wall of the Jubilee Shear Zone.
Highlights included:
- High-grade mineralization in the Surluga North Vein Network extended laterally to the north by 115 m
- Gold mineralization is associated with a network of multidirectional quartz-tourmaline veins
- The vein network is in the hanging wall of the Jubilee Shear Zone and was intersected at 165 m vertical depth
- Contains 5.13 g/t gold over 37.47 m, including 25.20 g/t gold over 3.41 m in SD-22-396 (see table 1)
- Other intersections of significance in the Surluga North Vein Network includes that have previously been released include:
- 8.46 g/t gold over 6.42 m in SD-22-321 (see news release of March 30, 2022) located approximately 200 m SW of SD-22-396
- 11.19 g/t gold over 2.61 m in SD-22-326 (see news release of April 19, 2022) located approximately 200 WSW of SD-22-396
- The possibility that Surluga North Vein Network is related to a comparable quartz-tourmaline vein network intersected 610 m north in 2016 in SD-16-43.
“These results from the Surluga North Vein Network demonstrate that significant mineralization exists in the hanging wall of the Jubilee Shear Zone and validates the potential for a hybrid put and an underground project,” Quentin Yarie, president and CEO of Red Pine Exploration, said in a statement. “The hanging wall of the Jubilee Shear Zone remains underexplored to the north of the intersection in SD-22-396, leaving the Surluga North Vein Network open for further extension toward the intersection of a comparable network of quartz-tourmaline veins 610m north in SD-16-43.
Moving into the rest of the year, the company told The Market Herald Canada that the company plans to conduct continuous drilling to expand and confirm an updated resource estimate.
At the Jubilee Shear Zone in the Wawa Gold Project, the company reported in early January results from its ongoing exploration program.
“These results from the Surluga North Vein Network demonstrate that significant mineralization exists in the hanging wall of the Jubilee Shear Zone and validates the potential for a hybrid pit and underground project,” Quentin Yarie, president and CEO of the company, said in a release. “The hanging wall of the Jubilee Shear Zone remains unexplored to the north of the intersection in SD-22-396, leaving the Surluga North Vein Network open for further extension toward the intersection of a comparable network of quartz-tourmaline veins 610 m north in SD-16-43.”
Meet the team
Quentin, Yarie, president and CEO
Quentin Yarie is an experienced geophysicist with extensive project management and business development experience. Yarie has been the company’s CEO and president since 2015 and previously acted as Red Pine’s COO between 2013 and 2015 and VP of exploration between 2009 and 2013.
Yarie has previously held the position of CEO of MacDonald Mines Exploration and Honey Badger Exploration in addition to senior VP of Exploration for NextSource Materials and board of directors of NextSource.
Jim O’Neill, CFO and corporate secretary
Jim O’Neill has over 30 years of experience as a finance executive with multinational businesses operating in Canada, the US, the UK, Turkey and Kenya. O’Neill’s extensive public company financial management and governance experience include junior mining exploration, development and operations.
O’Neill also currently serves as CFO and corporate secretary of Wester Gold Exploration and New Break Resources. He also serves as CFO of Waseco Resources.
Jean-Francois Montreuil, VP of exploration
Jean-Francois Montreuil has over a decade of experience in exploring complex hydrothermal systems for battery, precious, base and radioactive metals. He has contributed to the advancement of Red Pine’s Wawa Gold Project and the discovery of the Minto Mine South Deposit.
Montreuil has previously acted as chief geologist of MacDonald Mine Exploration and Honey Badger Exploration.
The investment corner
Thanks to a bought deal financing totalling $5.5 million that the company closed in September, Red Pine Exploration is well cashed up and does not need to raise any more money at the moment to advance its project. In other words, Red Pine Exploration is well-financed with strong partners in place, including Alamos Gold which continues to maintain its 19 per cent FD strategic investment.
As of the time of this writing, Red Pine Exploration has a share price of $0.38, a market capitalization of $52.01 million and 136.86 million shares outstanding.
At such a discounted price, Red Pine Exploration presents itself as a unique opportunity for investors thanks to its 100 per cent owned Wawa Gold Project — which covers two mineral deposits and several high-priority exploration targets — that sits in an ideal mining jurisdiction in Ontario.
With the company’s intentions to strengthen its presence in the Michipicoten Greenstone Belt, Red Pine Exploration will be a company to watch for well into 2023 and beyond.
For more information, please visit redpineexp.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article by The Market Herald.