As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has
the best information
Some 1,200 junior resource exploration
and development companies are located in Vancouver, British Columbia. Vancouver
is well
known as a hub for mining expertise and is
one of the greatest mining centers in the world.
Not many of those 1200 companies
can claim to have a mine, let alone one with:
·
A stable, just inspected permitted tailings impound with room
to grow
·
Only a 6 km drive down an all weather gravel road from the
Coquihalla Highway to the mine site
·
Power lines only six km away
·
Old mill equipment and foundations still in place
·
Extensive mine workings
·
Inferred gold resource of 686,540 ounces in two ore bodies
open in all directions
·
Water and mining permit already in place
·
Politically mining friendly jurisdiction
·
Positive response from local community
New Carolin Gold Corp. TSX.V - LAD can
claim all that, and a whole lot more - it’s fully permitted mine project
sits just 160 km east of Vancouver, close to the town of Hope. Workers can
complete their shifts and sleep in their own beds in their own homes. Supplies
can be easily sourced and transported to the mine site.
New Carolin’s Ladner Gold Project
‘The Coquihalla serpentine belt is an elongate,
north - northwest trending, steeply dipping ultramafic unit. The belt lies
within a major crustal fracture, the Hozameen fault and exceeds 50 kilometers
in discontinuous strike length. The serpentine belt reaches its maximum
development in the Carolin mine-Coquihalla River area, where it is greater than
two kilometers in width. It gradually narrows to the south (Manning Park area)
and north (Boston Bar).’ Exploration in B.C. 1989, Ministry of Energy and Mines
The
Coquihalla Gold Belt (CGB) has geological similarities to the Mother Lode
district of California (7m ozs of gold) and the Bridge River district (4.1m ozs
of gold) of southwestern BC.
New Carolin’s
Ladner Gold Property follows the Hozameen fault structure for approximately 28
km and exceeds 144 square kilometers covering substantially all of the
accessible, yet still very underexplored, CGB.
The Ladner Gold Project contains several former
underground producing gold mines and numerous gold prospects – more than 30
have been discovered so far.
Approximately 11 gold showings have been found within a 2
km stretch north of the Carolin Mine.
Carolin Mine
The Carolin Mine, a former underground gold producer from 1982 – 1984, is located on
the west fork of Ladner Creek, approximately 18 kilometers northeast of Hope.
The 1,360 tpd mill at the mine was commissioned in early
1982 and produced over 43,500 ounces of gold during 27 months of operation
Construction of the New Carolin Mine started in 1980 when
gold’s price was US$600.00 an ounce. When the first gold was poured gold was
down to US$300.00 oz. With poor gold recoveries (just 60%) and mined grades
lower than forecast due to country rock dilution the mine had to close in 1982.
The original resource estimate was finalized in 1997.
The gold resources reported in the table below are historic estimates (not NI
43-101 compliant) based on exploration and development work undertaken by
Athabaska Gold Resources in 1995 and 1996 using a database of 595 diamond
drill holes (approximately 40,000 meters of diamond drilling).
Currently the Carolin Mine has a compliant Inferred Mineral Resource estimate of 607,000 oz gold @
1.5 g/t in 12,352,124 tonnes at a cutoff grade of 0.5 g/t gold.
Confirmation drilling is required to bring the current resource
up to the historic numbers. The historic resource grade of plus 4 gpt was also
much closer to the average grade that was originally mined from the Idaho Zone
(New Carolin Mine).
The Carolin Mine mineralized zone is open in all
directions.
A mine development map from 1981 shows the 800 level
being extended north for 1.2 km to the McMaster Zone. The proposed cross cuts
for drilling indicate to this author that previous operators had high
confidence that gold mineralization runs beyond the Carolin Mine and that the area
between the Carolin Mine and the McMaster zone could yield additional gold
resources as development continues.
There are no shafts at the Carolin Mine and the
underground workings are dry and fully accessible.
The future mine model for the Carolin Mine envisions open
pit and underground components.
McMaster Zone
The McMaster Zone is approximately 1.3 km north of the Carolin
Mine.
A New Carolin May 2012 technical
report established an inferred resource on the McMaster zone of 3.6 million
tonnes grading 0.69 gram gold for 79,540 oz. gold using a 0.5 gram gold
cut-off. Note that over half of this existing resource is at 2 gpt and near
surface.
Highlights
- The McMaster Zone occurs within
the current mine permit area and is open in all directions.
- The McMaster Zone resource takes
into account only gold. The silver accompanying the gold mineralization was
not included in the historical database.
- The current resource estimate
doesn’t take into account a gold oxide zone. If it continues to depth it
could be significant.
The Emancipation Mine was an intermittent gold producer
from 1916 to 1941.
The Aurum,
Pipestem and Ward adits all produced gold intermittently from 1935
to 1937.
There’s also ‘Jewelry Box’ type gold
showings present:
- The
Montana - 30 oz’s gold from two tons of material.
- Georgia
No. 2 prospect - 33 oz’s of gold from one ton of material.
Tailings Pond
Athabaska Gold Resources drilled 60
holes into the tailings and New Carolin drilled another nine. These 69 holes
were drilled into just 60% of the tailings pond’s surface area. They were used
to establish a National Instrument 43-101 resource of 404,000 indicated tonnes
grading 1.83 grams gold per tonne for 24,000 contained oz., plus 84,400
inferred tonnes grading 1.85 grams gold for a further 5,000 oz gold.
Since the Carolin Mine shut down the fully permitted
tailings impoundment has been monitored and inspected by independent consulting
engineers. After the Imperial Metals Mt. Polley tailings dam breach BC’s
Ministry of Mines mandated that all of the Provinces tailings impoundments be
inspected and reports filed by December 1, 2014. New Carolin completed its
inspection in September 2014. Remaining tailings capacity is 1,327,723 metric tonnes.
Metallurgy
Core from the McMaster Zone (DDH 32-09; 3.96 g/t gold
over 27.6 meters, from 32.4 to 60.0 meters) was provided to SGS Canada Ltd. for
gold recovery testing.
Pressure-oxidation and
carbon-in-leach has shown recoveries of 96.3% on flotation concentrate from the
McMaster Zone. Using flotation, pressure oxidation and cyanidation - combined
with cyanidation of the flotation tailings - returned overall recoveries of 94.5%.
Mineralization of the McMaster Zone is similar to that of
the Carolin Mine (no core is available for testing).
The Plan
Management is reviewing plans to set
up a portable mill at the tailings pond which could yield 25,000 oz. gold.
The McMaster zone, because it’s a
surface expression, has potential as an open-pit mine and could supply
additional mill feed.
There is broken inventory
underground at the Carolin mine totaling several thousand tonnes - there was
always several days of inventory stacked ahead of mining. When the mine was
shut down this inventory remained. This inventory could be used to support the
portable mill plan if found feasible or for bulk sampling at a future date.
Obstacles
Nothing worth doing is easy and New
Carolin achieving 100% ownership of the Ladner Gold Project is no exception
(New Carolin currently owns 10% of the Ladner Gold Project).
Although the company has a deal in
place with the Receivers to acquire the remaining 90% ownership interests, at
the time of writing the company is still waiting for a vesting order from the
Quebec bankruptcy court to effect the transfer of all mineral claims and land
titles to the company.
On December 16, 2014 New Carolin Gold announced that:
“A vesting order was granted by the Quebec Superior Court on December 2,
2014 in the Century Mining Corporation ("Century") receivership
proceedings to permit the receiver to complete the acquisition agreement
announced on August 27, 2014 pursuant to which the Company has the right to
acquire all remaining ownership interests in and to the Carolin Mine and the
144 sq kilometer Ladner Gold Project.
The Quebec Court Vesting Order follows the recent granting of an Ontario Court
Vesting Order in the Tamerlane Ventures Ltd. ("Tamerlane")
receivership proceedings permitting Tamerlane's receiver to sell its interests
in the project to Century pursuant to an outstanding option (the
"Tamerlane Option") in order that Century can transfer that interest
to the Company pursuant to the acquisition agreement. Tamerlane and Century are
the two remaining owners of interests in the project in addition to the
Company. Both Vesting Orders are conditions of closing of the acquisition
agreement.
Upon completion of the acquisition agreement the Company will have acquired
100% ownership of the Carolin Mine and Ladner Gold Project, which will be the
first time in over a decade that title to the project has not been split among
multiple parties.”
As an additional condition of
closing the deal, the company must also raise $2,000,000 for property
development.
Conclusion
Revitalizing New Carolin’s Ladner
Gold Project could make it a cornerstone industry for the community
of Hope, BC. But not only Hope, Vancouver as a mining hub and the people of BC
need projects like this to succeed to reap the social and economic benefits
that come from resource extraction.
As for New Carolin’s shareholders, by
processing the tailings and mining the current resource at the McMaster Zone
New Carolin should generate significant cash flow. Money that can be used to potentially
increase the already significant resources at the McMaster Zone and New Carolin
Mine and saving the company’s investors considerable future dilution.
There’s also considerable discovery
upside left on the property. A recently
completed airborne geophysical survey indicated a major magnetic linear
structure that can be traced for over 18 km within the company's claims. All the
aforementioned gold prospects occur along this major magnetic anomaly and there’s
several kilometers of untested ground left along the structure to explore.
Is New Carolin Gold Corp. TSX.V –
LAD on your radar screen?
If not, maybe it should be.
Richard
(Rick) Mills
Richard lives with his family on a 160 acre ranch in northern British
Columbia. He invests in the resource and biotechnology/pharmaceutical sectors
and is the owner of Aheadoftheherd.com. His articles have been published on
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Mining Analysts.
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***
Legal Notice / Disclaimer
This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation
of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment.
Richard Mills has based this document on information obtained from sources
he believes to be reliable but which has not been independently verified.
Richard Mills makes no guarantee, representation or warranty and accepts no
responsibility or liability as to its accuracy or completeness. Expressions of
opinion are those of Richard Mills only and are subject to change without
notice. Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the
current relevance, correctness or completeness of any information provided
within this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance
upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission.
Furthermore, I, Richard Mills, assume no liability for any direct or
indirect loss or damage or, in particular, for lost profit, which you may incur
as a result of the use and existence of the information provided within this
Report.
Richard owns shares in New Carolin
Gold Corp. TSX.V – LAD
New Carolin is an advertiser on
Richard’s site aheadoftheherd.com.
This article is not paid for content.