Earlier this week, we reported how Comstock Metals (CSL.V) reacted on a set of excellent drill results after having completed the summer drill program at the Preview SW gold project in Saskatchewan. The assay results from the drill program on the southern part of the land package will be released in the next few weeks, but the drill results from Preview SW North already give us plenty of food for thought!
We wrote ‘All seven holes contained gold mineralization, but some of the results were impressive with for instance 4.2 meters at 9.66 g/t gold, and 16.7 meters at 5.08 g/t gold including some higher grade intervals over narrower widths. What’s particularly exciting is the fact the high grade mineralization is located close to surface. The aforementioned 4.2 Meters starts just 20.5 meters downhole whilst the 16.7 meters starts at 23.3 meters downhole.’
We have now had a more extensive phone call with CEO David Terry and have a better idea of how to interpret these drill results. The seven holes which have been released to date have successfully traced the gold mineralization over a length of approximately 200 meters. Excluding hole 173 (which returned 9.2 meters containing 0.47 g/t gold), we calculate the strike length at approximately 180 meters, as shown on the next image.
When going through the cross sections, the mineralization at Preview North also seems to be contained in a mineralized corridor subdivided in several parallel ‘zones’ as shown in the cross section of holes 175 and 176. These zones (five in total) have been traced throughout all seven holes and seem to be pretty consistent.
Using a strike length of 180 meters, an average width of the five zones of 6 meters and a depth of 50 meters, preliminary calculations indicate a tonnage of 150,000-200,000 tonnes of rock which will very likely contain in excess of 50,000 ounces of gold. A good start, but not the holy grail yet.
However, there’s no reason why the mineralization couldn’t continue at depth and we expect Comstock Metals to drill some deeper holes in the next exploration program at Preview. Doubling the depth of the mineralization to 100 meters and extending the strike length by an additional 50 meters would indicate a tonnage of 500,000 tonnes (note: these back of the envelope calculations are our own assumptions and should not be interpreted as the company’s official target or guidance). This could be entirely open pittable (depending on the strip ratio), making Preview North an interesting satellite deposit to complement the ‘main’ zone of Preview SW where Comstock Metals has defined a resource containing in excess of 400,000 ounces of gold. We’re still a few drill programs away from the ‘magical’ 1 million ounce mark, but if anything, these recent near-surface high grade gold results definitely indicate there are plenty of good reasons to continue working on the Saskatchewan-based project.
Meanwhile, drilling at the QV Gold project in Canada’s Yukon Territory is going as planned. The company is currently working on the third hole and expects to wrap up the diamond drill program by the middle of next month. We don’t expect to see any assay results before November which will give us plenty of time to digest the assay results from the final four holes which were drilled at the Southern end of the Preview SW project. Having two programs going this fall will give us lots of news and results to look forward to.
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The author has a long position in Comstock Metals. Comstock Metals is a sponsor of the website. Please read the disclaimer
