Mining Life & Exploration News Summer 2021

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Publisher, Glenn Dredhart

With Ontario having entered Stage 3 of reopening, I know that everyone is looking forward to getting back to normal as much as possible. We’ve had to postpone two consecutive Big Events and plans are already underway to re-establish the in-person version for the 2022 event, so stay tuned to our website for updates on that front.

In the interim, we here at Canadian Trade-Ex and Mining Life & Exploration News successfully held our first ever virtual conference earlier this summer and I am delighted to say that the response from both delegates and exhibitors was overwhelmingly positive.

We have a long history of connecting buyers, suppliers, educators, indigenous groups, and government officials with the right people.

At Canadian Trade-Ex, we invested heavily in developing our own virtual platform we called Virtex – the web-based virtual trade show system that we used for the Mining The Abitibi Virtual Conference in June.

Throughout this publication you’ll read excerpts from that event and it is undeniably true that the vast region known as the Abitibi Greenstone Belt has billions of dollars in untapped potential – something we’ve used as an underlying theme for our Big Event trade shows for many years.

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There’s no better place to stay on top of what northern Ontario and northwestern Quebec has to offer than our flagship online website, MiningLifeOnline.net.

The next best thing is this magazine. If you missed the Mining The Abitibi Virtual Event, the articles in this edition of Mining Life are full of powerful insight into the continued upward trajectory of companies like Kirkland Lake Gold and Wesdome, and the exciting exploration activities of companies like Wallbridge Mining, Canada Nickel Company, and Galleon Gold just to name a few.

Timmins, a city in the heart of all the excitement, is seeing the biggest economic boom in more than half a century. Real estate sales are skyrocketing. IAMGOLD’s Côté Gold project south of Timmins is well underway.

The city is now home to Kirkland Lake Gold’s Canadian Operations Centre. Glencore has finally confirmed a story that we broke more than two years ago, that they are going to develop “Mine 5” at the historic Kidd Creek Mine.

When you add the exciting discovery and impending development of the Crawford Township Canada Nickel project, you have a recipe for excitement, prosperity, and much more.

We’re glad to be a part of it. We think it’s just the beginning.

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TIMMINS MAYOR

By Kevin Vincent

Overseeing the biggest mining boom in 50 years

He’s the man in the middle. As the current mayor of Timmins, George Pirie is in the crosshairs of the enormous activity happening in the massive Abitibi mining region.

Pictured: City of Timmins MayorGeorge Pirie

In early June, at the Mining the Abitibi Greenstone Belt Virtual Conference, Pirie broke the news that Glencore Canada’s Kidd Operations had confirmed they would be spending $50-$60 million on an 18-month feasibility study to potentially extend the life of the Kidd Creek zinc-copper mine with the development of what they tentatively call Mine 5 – the 5th massive orebody at the Timmins-based mining complex.

“Anybody who knows anything about mining knows that this is a very aggressive time frame. 18 months to do that type of study is very aggressive, and $50 to $60 million tells you that Glencore is committed to the orebody and the people of Timmins.”

Pirie’s announcement confirmed a story that Mining Life & Exploration Page 6

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News broke in 2018 and had been following ever since. Glencore had announced publicly that the operation would be closing in 2022.

Coupled with the big news in November of 2020 that Timmins’ Mayor George Pirie had worked with longtime friend Tony Makuch of Kirkland Lake Gold to relocate the majority of their Toronto corporate staff to Timmins where they are establishing a Canadian Operations Centre, and a slew of exciting exploration stories since he took office, it is easy to say that Pirie is overseeing the biggest economic boom in Timmins in more than 50 years.

“Hang on to your hats, this is an exciting place to be,” said Pirie.

Pirie has a lot to be excited about.

The list includes Kirkland Lake Gold’s Canadian Operations Centre, the likely extension of the Kidd Creek mine life, Canada Nickel’s exciting Crawford Township project, Moneta Porcupine’s near-term startup east of Timmins, Galleon Gold’s near-term PEA, and IAMGOLD’s Côté Gold project south of the city.

The former President and CEO of Placer Dome Canada says exciting niobium deposits in Chapleau and south of Moosonee are also enor-

mous opportunities for the city and region.

Pirie took a large portion of his Mining the Abitibi presentation to acknowledge the efforts of Canadian Trade-Ex and its virtual conference division, Virtex, in establishing the virtual conference and trade show platform that was hosting the event.

“As you know, nothing happened last year with in-person events and we can’t afford to have two years without this type of conference happening within the city of Timmins and Northern Ontario. And I look forward to next year, when we will all be together to celebrate the ever-popular Canadian Mining Expo once again. It’s a tremendously important expo and conference for the city of Timmins, for Northern Ontario and Canada. And we welcome everybody back here next June.”

“I want to say again first, before we get into the conference, a little bit about what the Canadian Mining Expo means to the city of Timmins.

It is organized by a Timmins Corporation. They do a fantastic job.

They’re the largest private corporation in all of Canada that holds these types of events. And so, a big hats-off and pat on the back to Cont`d on Pg. 8

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TIMMINS MAYOR

Stainless steel on Timmins radar Cont`d from Pg. 6

Glenn Dredhart and his team. What they do is truely amazing.

A prime example of their dedication to the industry is the creation of this event. The Mining the Abitibi virtual event has 17 mining operations involved, 52 suppliers and service groups and 22 employment and training companies and they all took part to make this happen.

All of this happens because of a platform developed by Canadian Trade-Ex called VIRTEX.” When it comes to the region’s potential, Pirie is a huge advocate of the work being done by the local resident geologist Zeinab Azadbacht.

“Perhaps the most significant announcement that was made during the last six months was the fact that the new regional geologist in the Porcupine is focusing on rare earths and that’s a significant change from the priorities of the past which were focused on precious metals and base metals.”

Pirie says it’s an incredibly important announcement, because the future of the world’s economy is going to be based on electric locomotion. “Battery technology and rare earths are critical for that to happen, rare earth elements.

China controls them right now and the opinion of our regional geologists, the land that we sit on right now has untold potential to unlock the secrets of these rare earth elements, particularly within, I believe, the Kapuskasing structure.”

Almost on cue, there was a discovery 20 miles just west of Otter Rapids that found lithium and rare earth elements. “It’s got a significant geological signature with it, and I know they’ve got a program scheduled for the fall of this year and we’re really looking forward to those results. It’s Page 8

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a significant change in focus for our region.”

Pirie is genuinely excited about Canada Nickel. “Canada Nickel sits just directly to the north of us and you’ll be very well aware of the fact that they’ve had a very positive PEA and we know it’s early days, but these are very, very good numbers.

We know this resource just north of Timmins will only grow. We know that they’ve already got chrome with nickel, and copper as well is there. And this resource is just going to get bigger.”

“Why are we tied into this focus on rare earths? Because of course this rock is hosted in serpentine, the serpentine will absorb carbon.

So, there’s an opportunity here now to produce nickel with zero carbon emissions. If you were listening to me at the FONOM conference, May 18th, you heard me talk about the potential of what that means producing nickel in a carbon neutral fashion. I said that if Elon Musk was here, that he would be ecstatic to find out that this is possible. And it’s possible to do it within the city of Timmins because of serpentine.

And we have a lot of serpentine in our region.”

Pirie says he can’t say enough about it. He’s cautiously optimistic that this is going to be a huge game changer for the city of Timmins. “If you combine chrome and ferrochrome with nickel, of course, you’ve got the recipe for stainless steel. And again, that’s on our radar here within the city of Timmins.

“We’ve got four main platforms in the city’s plan and diversification is one of them and stainless steel fits right within that diversification along with, of course, upgrades to the rail facilities that we’re all talking about with the port in Moosonee.”

In five to ten years, Pirie predicts that most people won’t recognize the city’s economy as it transitions to the production of rare earth elements in addition to the production of precious metals.

“Lake Shore Gold (Pan American Silver) is doing very well. They continue to expand the resource and reserves of their operation and are working very aggressively to expand the transportation corridors that we have within the city of Timmins.”

He says Newmont is moving aggressively into the Pamour Open Pit project and he says he can’t say enough about what they’re doing at the Hollinger pit.

“The grade of the Hollinger pit is 1.3 grams which is a huge reserve to be mining in an open pit facility and I’m hoping that they give some thought to how they can expand that pit, because it’s 1.3 grams per ton compared to about a 0.75 or 0.5 gram resource that’s being mined at Detour – it’s huge.”

Pirie caps off his comments about the city’s future by re-emphasizing the significance of Kirkland Lake Gold’s commitment to Timmins.

“Tony Makuch is from Timmins and he’s a local champion.

You’ll be very well aware of the drilling that has joined the east and west pit so we can look for decades of production from the deep Detour Lake pit. And as you know, Kirkland Lake Gold under the leadership of Tony has announced an administration center that’s being built right here on the junction Highway 655 and Laforest Road that will employ about 200 people.

They’re doing that because they believe in the city of Timmins, they believe in the people of Timmins, and they believe Timmins will be able to attract the employees that are going to be required to support these new growth facilities.”

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Macassa #4 Shaft, Kirkland Lake Ontario

Mark Utting, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, KL Gold

By Kevin Vincent

The Abitibi Greenstone Belt has produced hundreds of small to large mines over the past 100 years and there’s always one company that rises above the others. That company today is unquestionably Kirkland Lake Gold.

The company is setting new standards in sustainable development, safety, community investment, production, and of course, shareholder value.

Mark Utting, Vice President of Investor Relations for Kirkland Lake Gold, outlined the senior producer’s forward-thinking business strategy to delegates at the Mining Page 10

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the Abitibi Virtual Conference.

As a senior producer, Kirkland Lake Gold has the Macassa Mine foundational asset in Kirkland Lake, the Detour Lake Mine north east of Cochrane, which they acquired last year and the Fosterville Mine in Victoria, Australia.

“These are three very profitable operations,” said Utting. “All three of these assets have significant value creation upside that can be realized and we are realizing through a continued investment in exploration drilling and in-capital projects and we have a very extensive program going on at all three of them.”

Given how profitable the company has been, it’s not surprising Kirkland Lake Gold (KLG) has a very strong balance sheet. At the end of March, KLG had just under $800 million of cash and no debt. Typically, over the last few years, the company has spent over $500 million in capital expenditures, and it will be a little more than that this year. In terms of total procurement, last year, they spent USD$1.2 billion in total goods and services and over $300 million in wages and benefits.

“We are a company very committed

to responsible mining and all issues related to ESG. We recently published our 2021 sustainability report. What it indicates is a great deal of work in the area of disclosure and reporting,” said Utting.

The strategy of KLG has been to identify assets where they see an opportunity to create unlocked value that is not currently recognized in the value of the asset or necessarily the share price of the owner.

“Fosterville, and I’ll say it’s value that can be unlocked through a commitment to exploration drilling and investment. Fosterville is a perfect example of this, we acquired it in late 2016. The market did not like the deal: our share price went down 45%. But what we saw was an opportunity for grades to get meaningfully better at Fosterville through extensive exploration drilling. And in the first year, we owned it, we spent more on drilling than had been spent through the entire life of the underground mine. As many of you will know, it was a complete success story for us. We proved we were right, we transformed the mine, and today Fosterville is truly one of the most profitable mines certainly in Australia and if not, the world.”

The same market reaction happened when KLG acquired Detour Lake. The market didn’t like it, and KLG proved market-experts wrong.

“We believe we’re going down much the same road with Detour Lake which we acquired a year ago January. We believe at Detour Lake and this is largely the investment thesis for the transaction,

Cont`d on Pg. 12

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Leaders in minimizing carbon emissions PMS: 662 C C:100 M:87 Y:0 K:20 R:24 G:54 B:131 HEX: #163683

PMS: Cool Gray 7 C C:20 M:14 Y:12 K:40 R:135 G:138 B:143 HEX: #878a8f

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PMS: 135 C C:0 M:21 Y:76 K:0 R:255 G:203 B:88 HEX: #ffcb58

Cont`d from Pg. 10

that there is a much larger deposit along the Detroit mine trend and is currently reflected in the mineral reserves of the mine, and this provides substantial opportunity for value creation.”

Kirkland Lake Gold did 70,000 meters of drilling last year at Detour and over 270,000 meters this year.

“We’ve had significant success.

I think we’ve had five or six press releases now and what we’re seeing is that we’re right - and we think we’re poised to create significant value at Detour.”

Kirkland Lake Gold has pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. “We already have an industry leader in minimizing these emissions. We followed up that pledge with a commitment to invest $75 million a year for five years in three key areas, advancing and commercializing alternative fuels and energies and creating the mines of the future through greater use of digitization and automation.

Both of these are squarely aimed at helping us to further reduce our emissions. About a third of these funds will be invested in our communities like Timmins, Cochrane, and Kirkland Lake.”

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The company is a leader in minimizing carbon emissions already.

In fact, according to the World Gold Council, Kirkland Lake Gold’s greenhouse gas emissions, on average, are about a third of the industry average. The Macassa Mine has some of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in the industry by virtue of the fact about 90% of the vehicle fleet is battery powered. “We also do very well in water management and area mine reclamation,” said Utting. “I can tell you last year Detour Lake Mine won the Tom Peters Memorial Mine Reclamation award for its progressive reclamation program. It involves rehabilitating 10 hectares of land per year starting in 2019.”

Of the $1.2 billion of procurement spent last year, about $800 million of it was in Ontario and most of it was in Northern Ontario. Over $300 million of total salary and wages, about $240 million of that in Canada and the vast majority of it is in Ontario.

The goods and services from companies with indigenous ownership totaled $263 million. “This is an important part of our efforts to build, maintain and continue to improve our association and our relation-

ship with our indigenous partners.

We make significant direct payments. We have constant consultation. We believe we’ve made good progress at Detour Lake with our relationships with the First Nations.

We have an IBA in place at Macassa and our other assets in that area and it’s a similar situation in Australia as well. This is a very important to us and a very important part of our business.”

Utting and Kirkland Lake Gold aren`t shy when it comes to predicting the future. “We find ourselves, in terms of the potential for Kirkland Lake Gold to outperform the industry. I know a lot of companies or virtually every company will tell you that, but I’ve got some very specific reasons I’m going to point to.”

“First, at the end of last year, we had to announce to the market that we expected to have a weak first quarter, at least very weak relative to the other quarters of 2021. Well, we actually beat the guidance we had put out for that quarter. But even more important, we’re now poised to have three very strong quarters over the rest of the year.

The other reason Utting says they think they’re going to outperform is because they have a number of key valuation catalysts coming in a relatively short period.

“First, at Detour Lake, I mentioned the exploration drilling end of January, issued a technical report in March on the work we had done, but did not reflect the exploration success we’re having. It showed a number of improvements and in itself was a key milestone for the company. But what we’re looking at doing is issuing a new mine plan in the first half of 2022 which will bring in all the exploration success we’ve

Cont`d on Pg. 14

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Cont`d from Pg. 12

had and the full impact of business improvement initiatives we’ve been doing. And we think it’s going to include significant value creation opportunities and could be transformational for the mine.”

At Detour, the company saw an opportunity to take down sustained costs from close to $1,200 an ounce before the deal to under $800 an ounce, and KLG is on track to do that and that’s significant value improvement potential.

“This just shows you our track record of financial performance,” said Utting. “As I said, we really led the industry over the last few years in earnings and we generate a lot of free cash flow. What this shows is we’re the low-cost producer in the industry and 100% of our assets are in top tier assets. And relatively speaking, we have a long life line index. So you would think we would have a premium valuation. Where we`re valued today, I would say there’s significant upside in terms of the multiples on our company.”

At Macassa, KLG is in the process of building a new mine. They’re sinking the number four shaft, it’s over a month ahead of schedule, and it’s targeted to be done in the second half of next year. “At that time production will increase by 150,000-200,000 ounces. All in PMS: 662 C C:100 M:87 Y:0 K:20 R:24 G:54 B:131 HEX: #163683

PMS: Cool Gray 7 C C:20 M:14 Y:12 K:40 R:135 G:138 B:143 HEX: #878a8f

PMS: 7407 C C:6 M:36 Y:79 K:12 R:210 G:152 B:71 HEX: #d29847

PMS: 135 C C:0 M:21 Y:76 K:0 R:255 G:203 B:88 HEX: #ffcb58

sustaining costs this year to be somewhere around $800 an ounce will improve to under $600 an ounce, and it’ll start a whole new chapter in exploration in the Kirkland Lake camp.”

Even though Kirkland Lake Gold’s flagship mine is more than 100 years old, the future upside is incredibly attractive.

“It really gets back to the fact of what we look for in assets that we acquire,” said Utting. “Because essentially, the Kirkland Lake Gold of today really came together through the acquisition and combination of four junior producing companies to make one much stronger one. But what we look for, is that opportunity to create value or the opportunity to crystallize unrealized value that we see is not reflected in the current value of the company.”

Utting says the current three assets involve drilling and realizing value, “And then you do your investment, and it gets into your operations you work very hard at achieving operating excellence and then you get the kind of results that we’ve had. But with these three assets, what you find then is there are new opportunities that continue to come up - so that explore, develop, operate, cycle continually repeats itself.

And we think that’s going to be the case for these three assets for a

Detour Lake Mine, Cochrane Ontario Page 14

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very long time.”

In addition to the company’s incredible success at all three mines, they also announced the establishment of a Canadian Operations Centre in Timmins. “We’re very pleased to have opened up our office in Timmins. You know, we have a couple hundred people, I believe, working there. And obviously, a lot of you will know Tony’s born and raised in Timmins and there’s other people within our company that are as well.

I personally have a great deal of affection for Timmins. I worked with Lake Shore Gold for nine years and it became sort of a second home for me up there, almost going to Timmins West Mine and Bell Creek. And I love the community, absolutely love it up there.”

“But from a business standpoint, this is a real opportunity for us, because we have Detour Lake, we have Macassa, we have other assets up there and to create sort of a central hub, if you will, know that’s just good business because it gives you the opportunity to leverage the skill sets and leverage the people you have in multiple different areas and to locate them centrally, really offers a number of advantages for us. And let’s face it. I mean, when it comes to mining, I mean, Timmins is such a hub and censor center for it; to have your office in the midst of it all just provides a great situation, I think, for us and for Timmins as well.”

“In terms of the investments we make, we’ve made a number of investments in junior exploration companies and development companies. “Let’s face it,” said Utting.

“Along the Abitibi Greenstone Belt and along the Porcupine Destor Fault, there’s just a whole lot of geology to like. So it’s going to be an area in which we continue to be very active.”

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While some of its assets in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt are well over 100 years old, Newmont is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Newmont Corporation began that recognition by identifying Colonel William Boyce Thompson’s spirit of exploration. The company was founded in 1921.

Newmont

celebrates 100 years Photo: Patrick Chabot (right) explains the Hollinger Reclamation Project to Ontario Mines Minister Greg Rickford and Timmins Mayor George Pirie at an event hosted by Newmont at the Hollinger Pit Lookout, July 21, 2021.

By Kevin Vincent

Located in and around the City of Timmins, the Porcupine district has produced more than 67 million ounces since 1910. Currently, approximately 60% of the gold comes from the Hoyle Pond underground mine, where mechanized cut and fill and longhole mining methods are used to extract the ore, and the remaining ore comes from the Hollinger Open Pit mine. The Dome Underground mine ceased operations in 2017.

Ore is processed at the Dome processing facility using a circuit that includes crushing, grinding, gravity concentration, cyanide leaching, carbon in pulp recovery, stripping, electro-winning and refining.

Before Goldcorp acquired Porcupine, mining had taken place in Timmins for nearly 100 years without Aboriginal or community group consultation. Porcupine has formal collaboration agreements with all of the First Nations that assert Aboriginal and treaty rights in and around the district: Mattagami, Wahgoshig, Matachewan, and Flying Post First Nations.

In October 2016, Niiwin, a business owned in equal parts by each of the four First Nations, was officially launched.

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Niiwin offers ore haul, cleaning and earthworks services for reclamation work at Porcupine.

While Porcupine’s workforce is 13% women and 8.7% Indigenous, the team working on the Century Project is evenly split between men and women – unusual in an industry where women are still in the minority.

In April of 2019, Newmont Mining’s $10 billion acquisition of Canada’s Goldcorp closed, which gave rise to Newmont Goldcorp Corporation, the world’s largest gold producer by market value, output and reserves. The mammoth company has mines in the Americas, Australia and Ghana, producing between 6 and 7 million ounces of gold annually.

A key reason for the business combination was the synergies and cost-savings the merged company could achieve. Newmont Goldcorp, became Newmont, and they immediately started delivering on an estimated $365 million in expected annual pre-tax synergies, supply chain efficiencies Cont’d on pg. 18

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Newmont a catalyst for change with a vibrant history Cont`d from Pg. 16

and other improvements.

From its early beginnings in mining in California, Newmont grew to become a geographically diverse and diversified mining house headquartered in New York, N.Y. The company returned its focus to gold in the 1960s with the discovery of Nevada’s prolific Carlin Trend. Following international expansion and series of transformational mergers and acquisitions, today, Newmont is the world’s leading gold mining company with 12 operating mines and two joint ventures, all in toptier jurisdictions.

“It’s an honor to lead Newmont Corporation at such a pivotal time in our history. This milestone offers us a clear moment in time to celebrate our achievements and reflect as we move into the next 100 years of mining,” stated Tom Palmer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Newmont. “Throughout our history, Newmont has been a catalyst for change. With a vi-

brant history, we have transformed; embracing new jurisdictions and innovative technologies. None of this would have been possible without our people, who have consistently risen to the challenge. I am excited about the strength and stability of our portfolio, the capabilities of our workforce and the opportunities we have in front of us.”

With more than 14,000 employees around the world at its 12 operating mines, Newmont’s organic pipeline is considered the best in the industry, all underpinned by the company’s clear strategic focus, proven operating model and superior execution. Recognized for its commitment to health and safety, Newmont is an industry leader in environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices.

The company continues to spur change with its climate change targets to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2030 and aspirations to

be net carbon zero by 2050. With these targets and its culture of superior operational and project execution and focus on delivering sustainable shareholder returns, Newmont looks forward to continuing to deliver on its purpose to create value and improve lives through sustainable and responsible mining.

Overall, Newmont is the world’s leading gold company and a producer of copper, silver, zinc and lead. The company’s world-class portfolio of assets, prospects and talent is anchored in favorable mining jurisdictions in North America, South America, Australia and Africa. Newmont is the only gold producer listed in the S&P 500 Index and is widely recognized for its principled environmental, social and governance practices. The company is an industry leader in value creation, supported by robust safety standards, superior execution and technical expertise.

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CRITICAL MINERALS

Precious metals, base metals & now EV metals

The Abitibi Greenstone belt has it all

By Kevin Vincent

A global movement that has seen the escalation of political pressure to reduce the greenhouse gases and fossil fuel consumption has sparked an intense worldwide race to identify minerals that can feed a growing appetite for electric vehicles.

Zeinab Azadbakht, the Regional Resident Geologist for the Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie District of the Ontario Geological Survey Resident Geologist Program, is leading efforts to supply comprehensive data that will serve the exploration industry in the Abitibi.

In Ontario, Mines Minister Greg Rickford released a Critical Minerals Strategy earlier this year that outlines the government’s plan to make Ontario a global leader.

“There is no universal definition for critical metals, but in a general sense, the critical minerals are the minerals that have a specific industrial, technological or strategic use,” said Azadbakht. “And for these elements or minerals, there are few viable substitutions.

They have a wide variety of usage from the battery industry to hydrogen fuel cells, and electronics.”

Canada and Ontario have released a list of critical minerals at the PDAC in March. There’s an 80% overlap between the two lists. But Ontario has a few specifics to itself namely: barite, beryllium, phosphate, selenium, and zirconium.

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From here to 2028, Azadbakht says the global demand for cobalt, nickel, lithium, and graphite, is huge. “The largest of it belongs to lithium and graphite. “We do have mineral development potential in Ontario, but we do not have current mineral production in the province, so it might be a good time to start investing and exploring these two types of minerals in Ontario.”

Azadbakht says the main sources for lithium are lithium-brines, pegmatites, and hydrothermallyaltered clays. The total production last year was about 82,000 tons and the main producers were Australia, Chile, and China.

About 71% of the global production of lithium went to the battery industry and 14% went to ceramic and glasses, based on which mineral you are extracting the lithium from.

The price of lithium has fluctuated over the past few years. It was high in 2017, declined and then right in the middle of 2020 when countries and jurisdictions started releasing their critical mineral strategies, the demand started to expand. Thanks largely to the battery industry, the price started to jump and it’s sitting at about $90,000 per ton of lithium carbonate at the moment.

“The main sources that we extract nickel from are laterite, massive sulfide deposits, and mafic-ultramafic intrusions,” said Azadbakht at the recent Mining The Abitibi Virtual Conference sponsored

by Canadian Trade-Ex. “Last year global production was about 2,500,000 tons, and the main production came from Indonesia, Philippines, and Russia. About 65% of the global production went to the stainless steel industry and less than 23% then to rechargeable batteries.” The price of nickel is about $18,000 per ton at the moment.

Cobalt is mainly sourced as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining. Last year’s production was Cont`d on Pg. 22

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Page 23

CRITICAL MINERALS The minister and industry leaders exchanged high level thoughts about the current state of mining in Ontario, and it’s clear that there’s a long way to go for mining to dispel some of the myths of the industry’s role in today’s society and economy.

Cont`d from Pg. 20

140,000 tons and the main producer was the controversial African country of Congo, which produced about 70% of global production followed by Canada and Russia. The major end use for cobalt is in lithium-ion and rechargeable batteries and as a metal alloy. The price for cobalt saw a spike in 2018. Today, it’s sitting at about $45,000 per ton.

“The last one would be graphite,” said Azadbakht. “The source for graphite commonly comes from the metamorphic rocks such as marble, schist, and gneiss. The last year’s global production was 1,100 000 tons and it was mainly produced in China and Mozambique. The global end-user market for this mineral is high temperature lubricant, and battery and fuel cells.

As for the price, it fluctuated and it had a very high rise back in 2011 to 2012 when it reached $2,500 per ton. But it’s sitting at about $1,000 per ton at the moment.”

Azadbakht spoke about the potential for these four elements in two of the districts, Kirkland Lake and Timmins. “The Case Lake project is the swarm of the pegmatites that is located 80 kilometers east of Cochrane and about 100 kilometers north of Kirkland Lake. It’s a spodumene pegmatite and it’s a combination of five dykes that they all have surface exposure at the property. It’s owned by Power Metals Corporation. It has a spodumene which is a lithium-bearing pyroxene, the main mineral that they extract lithium for battery industries. The grade for the lithium varies between 1-3% of the lithium oxide in the property.”

She says the second mineral found Page 22

Page 24 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

Power Metals Corp: Sample Collected from Case Main Dyke

in the property is pollucite, which is a rare cesium-bearing mineral.

There are only five known pegmatites in Ontario that have pollucite and three out of the five are owned

by Power Metals.

“The McAra project is a cobalt project 150 kilometers northeast of Sudbury. The cobalt found is in a high grade, five element veins in the Elk Lake Mining Camp. The measure indicated values are included of about a million pounds of cobalt and 11,000 ounces of silver and the inferred values are about 214 pounds of cobalt and about 2,000 ounces of silver.”

Timmins now has the nickel-cobalt project in Crawford Township. “It’s a Komatiite-hosted nickel, copper, and cobalt PGE deposit type. The nickel cutoff grade is about 0.26%.

So the total grade for measure indicated is 606 million ton of nickel at the grade of 0.26%, and the inferred value for about 400 million ton at 0.23%.”

The last one Azadbakht highlighted

was the Albany Graphite Deposit, owned by Zen Graphene. “It’s a deposit that’s located in northeastern Ontario near the community of Constance Lake, First Nation and the town of Hearst. It’s a very, very large resource of igneous hosted fluid drive microcrystalline graphite. They are high purity graphite and they’re fine grain rather than being flaked. The total indicated resource is about 24 million ton at a grade of about 4% of the graphite and the total inferred 16.9 at 2.64% of the grade.”

“The Abitibi Greenstone belt in Northern Ontario has a great potential for all four raw materials needed in the electric battery industry. More research and exploration are needed to understand such deposits. And many more projects are to come and the projects of today may possibly be the mines of tomorrow,” she concluded.

The increased demand for EV minerals means her office is busy.

“Since I’ve joined back in August, we’ve been seeing an increased number of inquiries from clients, especially regarding various elements and some of the critical metals. I think since we released the Critical Mineral List back in March, there has been an increasing interest in these minerals. We have clients from the United States, Australia, and the UK that actually purchase land and lease plans for mining claims here in northern Ontario, especially in Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie districts looking for the critical minerals. So I think there is a very good chance for more inquiries and there is a good chance that we might be able to find something.”

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Page 25

Moneta Porcupine on threshold of production It’s the oldest continuously traded stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange and it’s ready to make some noise. Moneta Porcupine Mines is the oldest mining company in Timmins. They started exploration as a publicly traded company in 1910 and produced 150,000 ounces of gold from 1938 to 1943 in the heart of Timmins.

By Kevin Vincent

Chief Geologist Kevin Montgomery outlined the company’s exciting plans to delegates at the recent Mining the Abitibi Virtual Conference hosted by Canadian TradeEx. “It has been a busy start of the year for Moneta. In February 2021, the company completed the acquisition of the Garrison Project from O3-Mining, to create a leading Canadian development company with four million ounces of gold in the indicated category, and 4.4 million ounces in the inferred category,” said Montgomery.

That makes Moneta one of the largest undeveloped ore resources in North America. It consists of both open pit and higher grade underground resources. The company has 2.8 million in the underground resource and 5.6 million in the open pit resource.

“The new project is a combination Page 24

Page 26 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

of the Golden Highway project of Moneta and the previous Garrison project of O3 Mining and it is now being called the Tower Gold project,” explained Montgomery.

“We’re about 100 kilometers to the east of Timmins in the Matheson area. We’re in an excellent gold producing camp. We have great infrastructure, Highway 101 East runs just to the north of us. We’re also located on the prolific Destor Porcupine Fault Zone where all the major mines of the Timmins camp are located. In fact, we have 17 kilometers of strike length along the Destor Porcupine Fault Zone.”

The company is well positioned with a significant resource base and they have an established mining camp. “We’re one of the largest land holders in the Timmins camp now. And we have excellent potential to expand our resources. We have 555 million shares out. This has been ranging from

Kevin Montgomery, Chief Geologist, Moneta Porcupine

$0.11-$0.47. We’re currently sitting around $0.38. But more importantly we have no debt and we have a cash position of about $25 million in the kitty.”

Moneta’s management and directors have a successful track record in exploring, developing, and producing. The management team is led by CEO Gary O’Connor who has been leading the team for over three years now. “We have a new CFO, Jason Macintosh, he’s just joined the company about six months ago. Our directors have been involved with a number of companies O3 Mining, Osisko, Barrick, and Kinross. So we have the experience to develop.”

The benefit of project consolidaCont`d on Pg. 26

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Garrison pit Cont`d from Pg. 24

tion with O3 Mining is that Moneta is now one of the largest undeveloped gold mining projects in Ontario. “We have a much larger scale project than originally envisioned in our recent PEA studies which will bring significant economic benefits on the operational and development synergies.

We’re also located in the Timmins district where there are many large mining projects that are permitted. Our land position has also increased by 73%, so we have more land to find more resources.”

Moneta also has a starter pit at Garrison which outcrops the gold mineralization. There’s no prestripping or anything else required to activate that starter. “This will aid with our underground and open pit resources on the Golden Highway Project,” added Montgomery.

Moneta has over eight gold deposits now in the combined property.

The majority of the open pit resources are on the Garrison Project. Moneta also has significant resources at Windjammer South.

“We have about 3.3 million ounces in the indicated and open pit and we have an underground resource focused predominantly on the southwest deposit where we have two million ounces in both indicated and inferred, which are very good numbers.”

“We have a company that’s creating value with significant indicated resources. We have a good starter pit at Garrison. We’re aiming towards a production profile of over 200,000 ounces per annum. We Page 26

Page 28 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

aiming towards a production profile of over 200,000 ounces per annum

have a lot of exploration potential which we are focusing on this year.

Metallurgy, the ore from both the projects are compatible to conventional process field sheets. So it’s looking really good.”

The company’s 2021 drill program is going to be 70,000 meters of which they’ve completed about 35,000 meters. “We’ve been focusing on the 55 infield and pit expansion. We’re trying to expand the resources at Westaway. And we’re also trying to connect the eastern part of southwest towards the Windjammer South pit in this area.

We do also have some targets that we’re following up on the halfway resource area and we will be looking at the Garrison Garcon east pit expansion and Garrison underground in the future, in the next couple months.”

At the Windjammer South open pit, the company intercepted some interesting gold values - 75 meters of 0.95 grams per ton. “We’re hoping to push this out. We have more drilling going on there and trying to push out the Windjammer South towards the east. We’re also looking at expanding the Windjammer South pit towards the west and into the southwest gap area. There is a potential of also expanding to the southwest on Windjammer South.”

On the valuation upside potential, Montgomery says Moneta has created a significant gold camp development company with a significant resource base. “Our resources with the consolidation jump from 5.5 to 8.4 million ounces; also, our peer average is well below our peers

and we believe we’re undervalued in this case.”

Moneta is also looking at modeling the southwest. There is some lowgrade surface gold that they’re going to try and model into an open pit and some additional test work on their new deposits and resources.

Toward the end of 2021, the company hopes to put out an updated resource estimation and then they’ll enter into 2022 with expanded PEA. “We’ve hit the first milestone of consolidating the acquisition of the Garrison Gold project, we’re halfway through our 70,000 meter program, and we’ll be finishing that up into the fall at which time we will be starting an expanded resource update and some additional metallurgical work.”

“We’ve been working on this project for about 40 years, but there’s been a lot of hiatuses,” said Montgomery. “And three years ago, we had a change in management and the new management came in and looked at the resources and said hey, we’ve got some high grade potential here. So we focused on highgrade vein zones and came up with a 2.1 million ounce resource at the southwest deposit. And since then, we’ve been focusing on, we’re going back to the open pit stuff and seeing if we can upgrade and better constrain the ore zones in the pits.”

Montgomery concluded his remarks by saying, “We’re quite happy with the resources we have, and we’re pushing towards mining them in the near future.”

Extending mineralization at Westaway “We are excited to continue to intersect significant gold mineralization from drill holes in our resource expansion drilling at the new Westaway deposit”, said CEO, Gary O’Connor. “The drilling has intersected gold mineralization in large step-outs to the south and west as well as at depth as we look to expand the current underground gold resources at Westaway. Additional holes and assays are still pending from the current drill program which has been testing the resource expansion potential at Westway. Resource expansion drilling is also ongoing on the South West, Windjammer South and 55 resource areas as well as the new Halfway target. The Westaway underground resource currently consists of 662,000 ounces gold inferred re-

sources at a 3.00 g/t Au cut-off within a total Tower Gold project resource of 4.00 Moz gold indicated and 4.40 Moz gold inferred.”

The drill holes were drilled as part of the expanded 2020/2021 winter drill program on the Tower Gold Project located 100 km east of Timmins.

Highlights: Drilling has intersected significant gold mineralization in resource step out drill holes at Westaway extending gold mineralization beyond the current resource estimate: MGH21-197, located within the West Block area extended gold mineralization to the south and at depth: Intersected 8.00m @ 5.34 g/t Au including 4.00m @ 10.01 g/t Au, including 2.00m @ 15.25 g/t Au, including 1.00m @ 17.60 g/t Au. MGH21-196, located within the West Block area extended gold mineralization to the south and to depth: Intersected 19.30m @ 3.94 g/t Au, including 4.50m @ 8.09 gt Au, including1.70m @ 16.82 g/t Au, including 0.70 m @ 20.00 g/t Au and Intersected 3.45m @ 6.86 g/t Au. MGH21-190, located on the western and depth extensions of the Westaway resource: Intersected 7.10m @ 2.98 g/t Au, including 4.90m @ 4.06 gtAu,including 0.54m @ 7.64 g/t Au. MGH21-186, located 300 m south of the current resources in the South Basin area: Intersected 7.00m @ 2.13 g/t Au including 1.00m @ 5.39 gtAu, Intersected 4.00m @ 3.32 g/t Au including 1.00m @ 8.95 g/t Au and Intersected 5.00m @ 4.78 g/t Au including 1.00m @ 8.36 g/t Au

Page 27

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Photo by: Graeme Oxby

Kidd Creek new lease on life will follow US$44 million study

By Kevin Vincent

The summer of 2021 finally included a news item that city of Timmins officials and residents had been anxiously anticipating for more than two years – Glencore looks like they are going to green light the development of yet another major section of the historic Kidd Creek Mine.

The news came in early June and was first reported

by Mining Life & Exploration News in early 2019. The mine was discovered in 1963 by Texas Gulf Sulfur Company. In 1981 it was sold to Canada Development Corporation, then sold in 1986 to Falconbridge Ltd., which in 2006 was acquired by Xstrata, which in turn merged with Glencore in 2013.

Glencore announced that the mine would cease production in 2022. But that announcement was short-circuited by the discovery that the world’s deepest base metals mine could go even deeper.

Much deeper.

In a statement, the Switzerland-based company described the Mine 5 Project to Mining Life this way: “The current Kidd Operations mine of life is until the end of 2023. Over the last year, Kidd Operations evaluated the possibility to extend the life of the mine. This project, known as Mine 5, required 89,000 meters of drilling and subsequent review by independent experts.

The project now moves to the next phase of drilling and feasibility, which is expected to cost around $US44M and will include a further 87,000 meters of Page 28

Page 30 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

drilling as well as some underground development, and engineering works. The Kidd Operations team will support the completion of the feasibility study while continuing to produce safely the minerals that are needed in everyday life.”

Kidd is already one of the deepest mines in the world.

The company says, “Mine 5, if developed as we hope, will be between 3 and 3.4 km deep.”

The company expects the study will be completed by Q4 of 2022. Drilling is already underway. At Kidd, Glencore lists zinc, copper and silver in their global resource estimates, and regarding reports that the new Mine 5 could also contain gold, the company is vague. “Kidd Operations’ deposit is a polymetallic deposit, mostly composed of zinc and copper but as in any polymetallic deposit there can also be precious metals,” they told Mining Life.

“It’s all incredible news for Timmins,” said mayor George Pirie. “We are experiencing the biggest economic boom in more than five decades with the Kirkland Lake Gold Canadian Operations Centre, the green-lighting of the IAMGOLD Côté Gold Mine just south of us, and of course the discoveries made by Canada Nickel in Crawford Township in the shadow of Kidd Creek.”

Pirie says the Glencore news is welcome and the indications are that the life of mine could be extended for several more years. “We will have to wait for the study to be completed by the end of next year, but from everything I can see, it looks very promising.”

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Page 31 CERTARUS.COM

canadanickel.com | TSX-V:CNC

Canada Nickel continues fast pace on Crawford deposit near Timmins

The Abitibi Greenstone Belt has produced enormous amounts of gold, silver, copper and zinc over the past century and now there are several companies looking to add nickel to that list- and the company that is taking center stage is Canada Nickel.

By Kevin Vincent

Canada Nickel Company filed its first-ever PEA on July 12th and it suggests a 25-year mine life assuming they get from here to production.

It has been a whirlwind year and a half since the junior explorer released a maiden set of drill results that suggested there is a massive nickel-cobalt deposit approximately 40 km to the north of Timmins’ world-renowned Kidd Creek mine complex.

At the recent Mining the Abitibi Conference hosted by Virtex, Canada Nickel Chair and CEO Mark Selby outlined where the company is at and where it is headed.

“It’s a new discovery we made a year ago September. Since that time, we’ve already defined what is one of the 10 largest sulfide resources globally,” said Selby. “We have a huge amount of exploration potential to go. In my past life, I advanced the Dumont project (Quebec) from resource stage to Page 30

Page 32 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

fully permitted construction-ready stage with a broad base of community support. Having assembled much of the former Dumont team at Canada Nickel, we intend to repeat that here.”

Selby says one of the key pieces was an excellent relationship with the local community and local First Nations. He says CNC has been off to an excellent start with Taykwa Tagamou Nation (New Post) , Matachewan, and Mattagami. “One of the key dimensions of this project in a decarbonizing world you’ve seen more and more press over the last 12 months about how important and how many companies are focused on net-zero carbon goals going forward. And what is very exciting about the project, in addition to it being one of the world’s largest sources of nickel for the next generation, is the ability for us to produce large quantities of nickel. We believe that’ll be zero carbon nickel, cobalt and zero carbon iron.”

Selby says the company has min-

eralization that when it is exposed to air, has the potential to spontaneously absorb CO2 and permanently sequester it out. “Again, being in the Timmins region, we’re very fortunate to have access to zero carbon, low-cost hydroelectricity and we’re able to substitute some of the diesel we use by using electricity with trolley trucks and that puts us in great position to be able to deliver on that zero carbon promise,” he said.

In June, CNC announced the results of its PEA - US$1.2 billion dollar after tax NPV8%, IRR of 16%.

“We’ll be producing nearly two billion pounds of nickel at just over $1 per pound of nickel C1cash costs and just under $2 per pound all-in sustaining costs, and this also includes a substantial amount of iron and chrome by-product revenues.”

CNC is looking at a downstream approach with processing in the Timmins region. Selby says the company is just getting started.

The PEA indicates a 25-year mine Cont`d on Pg. 32

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canadanickel.com | TSX-V:CNC

A Top 5 Nickel Sulphide Operation Globally – Mark Selby (R), Chair and C.E.O., Canada Nickel, meets with exploration geologists at Crawford Nickel Sulphide Project Camp to review latest drill program.

Cont`d from Pg. 30

plan based on a phased 120,000 tonnes per day open pit mine and processing operation using conventional nickel sulphide concentrator, producing nickel concentrates and magnetite concentrate.

Over the 25-year mine life Crawford is expected to produce 842,000 tonnes of nickel, 21 million tonnes of iron and 1.5 million tonnes of chrome valued at $24 billion using long-term price assumptions. Annual average nickel production of 75 million pounds (34,000 tonnes) with peak period annual average of 93 million pounds (42,000 tonnes), with significant iron and chrome by-products of 860,000 tonnes per annum and 59,000 tonnes per annum, respectively.

“For a lot of junior mining companies, the PEA comes after multiple years of exploration. In this case, this resource was locked down just 13 months after we had started drilling and we continued to drill since that time. So, we still have a tremendous amount of exploration potential and a number of other opportunities. We want to get our feasibility study out by mid next year, it’s an aggressive goal and Page 32

Page 34 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

we’re going to push hard to get there.”

Selby says the reason CNC is pushing so hard is their team’s experience with other nickel projects. “We believe we can execute on this kind of a timeline and then, we really believe that nickel is going to enter one of its super cycles which you’ve seen in the late 60s, the late 80s, the mid-2000s and now we expect to see by the middle part of this decade with strong

demand growth from the electric vehicle sector on top of continued strong demand growth from the stainless-steel side. And the reality is there are very few nickel-investible opportunities outside of Indonesia.”

The CNC chairman says there are some key dimensions of the nickel market that Crawford is ideally positioned to take advantage of. First, nickel has always been a high growth metal, much higher growth than copper and zinc, some of the other local metals in the Timmins region. And because the demand grows quickly, you need to continue to find additional sources of supply going forward.

“Glencore’s forecast from a few years ago, they recently updated and they’re forecasting that we will need 9 million tons of nickel by 2050, now that’s versus just 2.5 million tons today,” said Selby. “By 2030, they’re expecting well over a million tons of nickel required just for electric vehicles versus almost nothing a few years ago. When you combine that continued strong deCont`d on Pg. 34

Crawford expected to be one of the largest and lowest-cost nickel sulphide operations globally – PEA of Canada Nickel’s 100% owned Crawford Nickel Sulphide Project released in May 2021, using forecast long-term prices of US$7.75/lb for nickel, US$1.04/lb for chromite, $290/t for iron and a Canadian exchange rate of US$0.75. Over a 25-year life, planned payable production from the project is expected to include 1,689 Mlbs nickel, 1,388 Mlbs chromite and 15 Mt iron, at first quartile net C1 cash cost of US$1.09/lb and net all-in sustaining cost of US$1.94/lb Ni.

Page 33

ML&EN SUMMER 2021

Page 35

canadanickel.com | TSX-V:CNC

Crawford Nickel-Sulphide Project is expected to have an industry leading low carbon footprint, lower than 99.7% of existing global nickel production.

Based on a study undertaken by economic geologists Skarn, when in operation, Crawford is expected to produce 2.05 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per tonne of nickel-equivalent production over the life of mine, 93% lower than the industry average of 29 tonnes of CO2. Source: Skarn Associates and Canada Nickel Company Cont`d from Pg. 32

mand growth from historic uses like stainless steel and again, we do not expect that underlying growth rate to slow down. Stainless steel is an excellent product for a low carbon, low impact economy.”

Selby says the demand growth from EV suggests a need to double supply by 2030 versus where we were in 2018. “If you think of all the nickel operations that were in existence a few years ago, we need to find that equivalent amount of production, get it ready, get it built, and get it in production by the later part of this decade. It’s a massive amount of supply that’s necessary and again, very little visibility on new supply outside of Indonesia.”

“When Elon Musk was wanting to decarbonize the planet by introducing electric vehicles using lots and lots of nickel that comes with a massive carbon footprint was not what he had had in mind in terms of the kind of cars that he wanted to produce. Nickel sulfides in general are much lower carbon intensity,” he said.

“Robert Friedland (of Ivanhoe Page 34

Page 36 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

Mines) referred to nickel as the new gasoline on several occasions and if you look at the structure of oil supply using that gasoline analogy, OPEC at its peak back in the early 70s was just over half of the oil market. Today in the nickel space, just three countries: Indonesia, the Philippines and New Caledonia already produce more than half of current nickel supply. And given that the bulk of supply growth for the next five to ten years will likely be almost exclusively coming from Indonesia with a few exceptions from projects like ours. That supply dominance is going to be very, very challenging to the industry,” said Selby.

The CNC chairman says if you’re a western automaker or a European automaker, do you really want to tie your supply chain to production that’s largely Chinese-controlled in that part of Indonesia and in places where countries are short of cash and they have intervened in their mining sector? “So do you want to create that kind of supply chain risk in your production pipeline? And we think that projects like Crawford will be very well sought after by a num-

ber of end-users who don’t want to take on that supply risk.”

CNC’s early plans suggest Crawford will be a large-scale open pit mine operation. “We’ll start out at 42,500 tonnes a day and then through two expansions, ramp up to 120,000 tonnes a day. Life of mine strip ratio is just over 2:1, but in the early years is lower than that. Again, one of the key things is the access to low-cost hydroelectricity and the fact that that’s zero carbon and we can substitute that for the use of diesel fuel by using trolley trucks and electric shovels.

In terms of the mill itself, it’s equipment that you’d see pretty much in every mill, sag mill, ball mill floatation, and mag separation.”

The company is expecting to produce three products - nickel concentrate which they believe will be among the highest grade in the world at 35%. Taking advantage of the mineralogy, they will produce a low grade 12% concentrate which is in line with standard grade concentrate consistent with other sulfide concentrates and then a magnetite concentrate which CNC intends to process locally with just under 50% iron and an average of three percent chrome.

“Based on results of the preliminary economic assessment, Crawford would be the fifth largest nickel sulfide project globally just behind Sudbury, which would make it the largest single mine outside of Russia and China. We would be the largest base metal operation in Canada, larger than Highland Valley, Raglan, and Voisey’s Bay, where they’re producing on a goforward basis. You can see what the nickel equivalent production looks like. This is the scale of the project that we expect and hope to start building in Timmins in the not too distant future.”

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Galleon Gold watchers anxious for PEA The play on words is irresistible. Galleon Gold has every oar in the water as the company continues its smooth sailing toward Timmins’ next big orebody.

David Russell, Galleon Gold, Pres. and CEO

By Kevin Vincent

The Eric Sprott-backed junior has established an aggressive exploration pattern for itself at the company’s West Cache Project in West Timmins and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that Galleon will be the city’s next producer.

Galleon’s West Cache project is 13 kilometers west of Timmins along Highway 101.”We’re butted against Pan American Silver’s West Mine,” explains President and CEO R. David Russell. “We’re on the same type of structures Page 36

Page 38 SUMMER 2021 ML&EN

that come out of Timmins and we head to the southwest area.”

The company is working on a 43101 that’ll be out shortly followed by a PEA, Preliminary Economic Assessment.

“We started about a year and a half ago with 1,079,000 ounces in a global resource base. We started with a database of about 325 core holes, now we’ve added 213 infill holes in between known mineralization for a total of 46,000 meters. We’ve hit the same mineralization they had before, we’ve just expanded on it, and we’ve hit Vein 9. Further to the south, there’s another structure a little bit different mineralogy there, but it holds a lot of gold.”

Galleon has commenced baseline studies and is getting prepared to finish surveying to go to lease on the property for permits, followed by an underground ramp design to do some test mining and bulk mining.

Russell says the location is ideal.

“It’s roughly a two-hour flight north

of Toronto. And the key is being close, we’re bisected by Highway 101, we have water, power, gas lines, everything through there including access. We’re not a moose pasture where we’ve got to bring in infrastructure. It’s there. We’ve got the airports. We’ve got a miningfriendly environment. We’ve got a skilled workforce - that’s very, very important when you’re starting up a project.”

We have an MOU with the First Nations communities, that’s the Flying Post and Mattagami First Nations, both of which are great working partners on this project.”

Galleon began to accelerate their interest in West Cache about two years ago. Since that time, Russell’s enthusiasm has jumped significantly and so has his predictions on the property’s potential.

“We should have a multi-millionounce project here as we go. Now the actual footprint is about 3,500 hectares.”

Russell says the company describes the property as a Mesothermal lode gold deposit system in the Abitibi Greenstone belt. “Having the name Abitibi really tells a lot within the system, and we’re right in the core of it here. And very similar to the Hollinger and McIntyre mines which were about 30 million ounces within that area of production and is still in production today with Newmont.”

In presentation after presentation Russell takes investors and interested parties through a comprehensive examination of the company’s drill results in several exciting areas.

“Original drilling explored it and we merged with Xplore and came up with Galleon Gold and the West Cache project. And what we did is we looked at the data they had drilled, they’ve done a great job

Cont`d on Pg. 38

WEST CACHE GOLD PROJECT ON TREND IN THE TIMMINS CAMP TSXV GGO

MINING SOLUTIONS utt.mapei.com Page 37

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The makings of a world class operation Cont`d from Pg. 36

drilling deeper. Here’s 10-09, 2123, you’ve got 11 meters, 5 meters, 4 meters, 11 meters, and you look at the grades 5 grams, 8 grams, 39. I looked at that and said okay, we’ve got a winner here, we’ve just got to infill drill, we’d have to be able to model the data, be able to permit this project, take it underground, redrill on a call space center and start mining.”

Notwithstanding that enthusiasm, there’s lots of work to do.

“Before we can start the actual milling process, we’ve got to go through all the environmental studies, what type of mill, what type of tailing spawns and what kind of liners, that sort of thing that we’re going to actually use within this project,” said Russell.

“We have the west deep, we’ve got the number nine zone, then we have the west pit, the gap, east pit, and east pit expansion.

Now all these four areas will be one megapit as we develop it.”

The company’s land survey is close to being done. “It’s one of the more complex surveys, because we’ve got highways, gas lines, power lines, things like that and other areas to look at.

The permitting activities baseline studies for flora and fauna water hydrology, that sort of thing, we’ve got to develop a closure plan which we’re working on and then the underground ramp design Page 38

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that goes with it. Then there’s a bulk sample and then a closer plan for that bulk sample along with it.”

Russell expects the company’s PEA to be ready by early fall. “In between, we will turn out, very shortly an NI-43, National Instrument 43101, it actually states what the resource base will be. So, stay tuned in the next few weeks you’ll see that document come out followed by the PEA study. And we’ll have ongoing exploration programs and continue consultations with our First Nations partners.”

Russell isn’t shy about categorizing Galleon as a potential world class operation.

“What’s a full-scale project?

It could be anywhere from let’s say a project that produces or a throughput of 2,500-3,500 tons per day, open pit grades at 2.5-3.5 grams, underground grades of 6 grams or higher, maybe towards 7 grams, and potentially a production profile, I’m kind of stepping out a

little bit here, but it could be 80,000100,000, maybe 120,000 ounces per year. It just depends on how big the project will be, what will come from the open pit and underground.

But all our studies will define that in the PEA study and then go on to pre-feasibility studies that will really lay that out.”

The company has everything in place for a successful journey. “And we’ve also got a proven experience management team, not only geologically, but permitting and people that are from Timmins that know their way around the mining business, what know their way around the ministry, the permitting end of it and they know how to do it right and get this project off the ground.”

Concluding his presentation at the Mining The Abitibi Conference, Russell escalated his predictions on the property’s potential.

“I think I try to be conservative. And like I said, we started with 1,079,000.

Cont`d on Pg. 40

THE BLUE LIGHT THAT SAVES LIVES

FOR MORE INFORMATION WWW.BLUEWAKE.COM Page 39

ML&EN SUMMER 2021

SUDBURY MINING REPORT 2015

Page 41

GALLEON ADDS OUNCES AT PRESS TIME Cont`d from Pg. 38

So, my expectation is it’s north of that. Maybe you don’t hit the 1,500,000 or 2,000,000 mark, but what I want to tell the investors and listeners is this is a very large project, okay and if you extrapolate, we’re only drilling say 2,000 meters on a 6 kilometer section of ground that we own. This structure has not been proven that it’s cut off on strike and dip. So, when somebody says we’re open on strike, we’re open on dip, we’re literally open on strike and dip here. So, if you can in the 2,000 meters put a million ounces or a million a quarter, anybody can actually do the extrapolation of the numbers and say this is probably a 1,500,000, 2,500,000 type of deposit. So, we have the potential here to add ounces, just advanced programs drilling feasibility work and you’re going to add ounces.”

Adding ounces is what Galleon Gold did!

Announced on July 13, 2021 with the discovery of a new mineralized area with multiple gold zones at its 100% owned West Cache Gold Project.

The South Area Discovery - multiple gold zones with significant grades and widths • Located in previously undrilled area 50-250 meters south of Zone #9 • Higher grade intercepts, include: o WC-21-198 with 2.0 m at 14.54 g/t Au o WC-21-192 with 2.0 m at 7.96 g/t Au o WC-21-188 with 1.5 m at 8.90 g/t Au • Significant thicker intervals, include: o WC-20-077 with 41.5 m at 1.03 g/t Au o WC-21-162 with 10.0 m at 1.28 g/t Au o WC-21-192 with 9.0 m of 2.53 g/t Au • Mineralization remains open along strike and down dip • Portions of the South Area display mineralogic profiles that are similar to the Zone #9 and the West Deep area just to the north • South Area geology, including mineralogy, structure, and host rock characteristics, suggests similar potential for future discovery of new zones even further to the south in unexplored terrain.

Russell comments, “Results from our 2020-21 exploration program have exceeded our expectations. We started with an infill drill program to improve and gain an understanding of the economic potential of the existing mineralization at West Cache and in the process discovered the high-grade Zone #9 shoot. Building on our model for Zone #9 mineral controls, we extended three holes to the south at the end of 2020 and had our first indication that something new and very significant might exist there. We confirmed those early results with a follow-up program in 2021 and made the discovery of the South Area official. It feels like we are just starting to understand the blue-sky potential on this project. I expect as we continue to build on our growing understanding of the mineral controls’ property wide – additional pit and underground targets will emerge.

We are also pleased to report that we have now received all assays needed to complete the modelling of the main mineralized areas on the Project as required for completion of the PEA. Moving forward, the Company has been advised that work over the next 7-8 weeks will be required by P&E Consultants in order to complete the required analysis and write-up to produce preliminary PEA results now due in early September.”

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Page 43

Alamos Gold delivers value to shareholders and benefits to Northern Ontario communities

By Kevin Vincent

Stability and an enviable risk profile. Any time you can use those words in a sentence it spells confidence for investors. That was one of the highlights of a presentation given by Alamos Gold Chief Financial Officer Jamie Porter at the recent Mining the Abitibi Virtual Conference.

Jamie Porter, Alamos Gold, CFO

Alamos Gold`s Young-Davidson Mine located in Matachewan ON.

“W

e do have diversified production from our three operating mines, two of which are located in Northern Ontario, and our third, our Mulatos Mine is located in northwest Mexico,” said Jamie Porter. “We’ve grown considerably since our founding in 2003. In fact, just five years ago we were a single asset producer with our Mulatos Mine in northwest Mexico being our only producing gold operation.

Since that time Alamos has completed two significant acquisitions.

They’ve acquired the Young-Davidson and the Island Gold Mines, both in Northern Ontario which brought their production level up to approximately 500,000 ounces per year.

“Over two-thirds of our production and revenues now come from our Young-Davidson and Island Gold Mines. We directly employ over 1,800 people globally, with over a thousand of those employees and certainly more contractors coming from Canada, primarily again based in Northern Ontario.”

The company’s core values are safety, teamwork, environmental sustainability, integrity, and commitment which form the foundation for everything that they do as a company.

“In growing Alamos into what it is today, we have focused on high quality, long life assets in safe jurisdictions. We’re on track to produce approximately 500,000 ounces of gold this year, again with 70% of that production coming from Canada.”

What sets Alamos apart from its peers is that their mines have relaPage 42

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tively long lives, averaging 12 years between them. “And that 12-year average mine life is anchored by an almost 10-million-ounce mineral reserve base. This really positions us as a stable, diversified gold producer with an enviable political risk profile.”

On top of that, Alamos has a strong portfolio of attractive growth projects with the Lynn Lake Project in Northern Manitoba being next in the queue for development.

Our pipeline of organic growth projects is expected to contribute to 50% production growth between now and 2025. We will be able to demonstrate strong growth while the rest of the industry is facing declining mine lives and rates of production.”

While Alamos is focused on 50% production growth over that period, margins and profitability will also improve dramatically. The company is anticipating over a 20% percent reduction in all-in sustaining costs.

“Our corporate strategy has always been very conservative and low risk. We focus, as I said, on safe jurisdictions on high quality assets and we’re very financially conservative. Maintaining a conservative balance sheet is what has enabled us to take a counter-cyclical approach

Cont`d on Pg. 44

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Island Gold Mine, one of the highest grade and most profitable gold mines in the world

Alamos Gold`s Island Gold Mine located in Dubreuilville, ON. Cont`d from Pg. 42

to mergers and acquisitions. We have had the financial strength to acquire companies at the bottom of the market, but many of our peers can’t. We have a sustainable business model that supports increasing returns over the long term and the results really speak for themselves, as we’ve delivered a 14 annualized return for shareholders over the course of our 18-year history,” said Porter.

Alamos’ Young-Davidson Mine is located in Matachewan, about 60 kilometers west of Kirkland Lake, and it’s one of Canada’s largest underground gold mines with a design capacity of 8,000 tons per day. “90% of the workforce at Young-Davidson is local and we’re a very important employer in the region, accounting for approximately fifteen percent of total mining employment.”

Young-Davidson also contributes significantly to the local economy, with over $17 million of economic benefit in terms of spending to the regional economy on an annualized basis. Porter says the Young Davidson has a 14-year reserve life with significant exploration potential beyond that will ensure that Page 44

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the operation continues to be a very significant employer and contributor to the local economy for decades to come.

“In 2020, we had a very important milestone at Young-Davidson. We completed construction of the lower mine infrastructure which has enabled us to increase our daily mining rates from 6,000 tons per day where we’ve been operating for the last four or five years to approximately 8,000 tons per day. This expansion has made Young-Davidson far more efficient, far more productive even because the mine and the infrastructure is more automated, and it will enable us to consistently produce in excess of 200,000 ounces of gold per year; and at current gold prices, that means in excess of $100 million of annualized free cash flow.”

The Island Gold Mine is located in in Dubreuilville, Ontario near Wawa, just north of Sault Ste. Marie. “This asset has really been a tremendous success story for us since we acquired it through the acquisition of Richmont Mines in November of 2017,” said Porter. “When we initially bought Richmont and acquired Island Gold, we had approximately 1.8 million ounces in total mineral reserves

and resources. Since that time, we’ve added an additional 3 million ounces. At the same time, we’ve increased production by about 50% going from what they were operating in 2017, 800 tons per day to our current rate of production of 1,200 tons per day.”

Island Gold is now approaching 5 million ounces of mineral reserves and resources. It’s one of the highest grade and most profitable gold mines located anywhere in the world. Island Gold’s also a very important employer in the region, accounting for 22% of total mining employment in the Algoma Region, and also, much like Young-Davidson contributes significant leaks of local economy with nearly $12 million of economic benefit accruing to the region on an annualized basis.

“We’ve had phenomenal exploration success at Island Gold. And as a result of that in the expanding ore body, that’s positioned us to be able to expand the operation. We’re looking at investing and sinking a shaft and expanding the mining operation from 1,200 to 2,000 tons per day.

This will bring average annual gold production from our current rate of around 140,000-150,000 ounces a year to approximately 240,000 ounces per year while driving all sustaining costs from current levels of around $750 an ounce down to closer to $500 an ounce. These are industry low leading costs, 500 all in sustaining costs and the gold price well north of $1,800 an ounce we’re generating tremendous margins Cont`d on Pg. 46

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Page 47

50% growth / 20% cost reduction forecasted at this operation.”

And while Alamos’ existing phase three expansion plans for growth at Island are very exciting, they believe there’s more growth to come. “With the best highest grade drill intercepts that we’ve ever reported at this project that adapted to the east. We believe we will continue to benefit from this exploration success and that this deposit is going to continue to grow and the value of the Island Gold mine will certainly grow with it.”

The company is always looking for ways to minimize the impact and reduce its environmental footprint. Their greenhouse gas emissions and water usage per ounce of gold produced are already well below both the intermediate and the senior peer average. These are metrics that Alamos continues to look to improve with initiatives at each of their operations.

“From a social perspective, we’re focused on a culture of safety first, and we’re certainly seeing results with a 59% reduction in our lost time injury rate since 2018. We have a program we call ‘Home Safe Every Day’, and this drives everything that we do from a health and safety perspective. It’s an area where again, our focus is continuous improvement we’re always looking to do better. Within our host communities, we’re always looking for ways to invest that will provide ongoing benefits well beyond the life of our operations. And we’ve been recognized in both Mexico and Canada for our efforts in this regard,” added Porter.

With the success of the mining industry comes a competition for talent.

Alamos is always looking for people. “We’re always on the hunt for more.

We had pretty significant turnover across all of our operations. As you know, the gold market generally started to improve, we found more competition for especially our senior roles. I think we’re very satisfied I mean with the quality of the workforce in Northern Ontario. But the key is keeping your good people. We offer very competitive compensation packages, leadership training, skills development training.”

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Porter says what keeps their best people at Alamos is just the culture of the company. “It’s really a meritocracy. Everyone is certainly encouraged to be proactive and to take ownership and work together to achieve the best possible outcomes, so it’s really a great place to work. I’ve been with Alamos since 2005. I never thought I’d be with one company for more than five years and I’m going on 16, as has the majority of our senior management team and many of our employees down through the ranks.”

Will Alamos look for other mines as well as new talent?

“As we’ve seen the gold price run up and valuations increase, that’s typically when we kind of stand back and let others get involved in M&A. I alluded to it in the presentation. We’ve tried to take a counter-cyclical approach, we’re very conservative from a financial perspective. We did our merger of equals between Alamos Gold and AuRico that brought in the Young-Davidson Mine. We did that in 2015 when the gold price was around $1,100 an ounce. In 2017, we acquired Richmont Mines, the gold price was just over $1,200 an ounce,” said Porter.

“We’ve always favored the approach of having a strong net cash balance so that if the market takes a turn, the gold price dives, we’re in a position to be acquisitive and that’s worked out really well for us.

So given that, we are not on the hunt currently. I mean we’ve got a 50% growth and a 20% reduction in costs over the next five years with our organic pipeline. So there’s really no need for us to look outside the company to do anything at this point.”

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A massive economic boost to

Northern Ontario supply & service industry The project’s new Deputy General Manager, Mike Garbutt outlined what has been happening at the project when he spoke at the Mining the Abitibi Virtual Conference. “IAMGOLD is relatively new to Northern Ontario.

IAMGOLD is a Canadian-based midtier mining company with three gold operations on three continents, the first of which Essakane is in Burkina Mike Garbutt, Deputy General Faso, Rosebel is in Suriname and Manager, Côté Gold then the Westwood Mine in the Abitibi region. Our development projects

By Kevin Vincent include, of course, Côté Gold in OnIAMGOLD’s Côté Gold Mine has tario, the Boto project in Senegal, and been a whirlwind of activity since as well we have a number of greenSeptember of 2020. field, brownfield exploration projects in various countries located in West Africa and as well in the Americas.”

Garbutt says the company has a strong culture of accountable mining and high standards of environmental and social governance practices across all areas in which they operate. They have a commitment to zero harm in every aspect of the business. “This certainly has been our guide and vision over the last dozen years. And right now, companywide, we employ about 5,000 people total.”

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“IAMGOLD along with our joint venture partner, Sumitomo Mining is in the process of building this new mine here in Northern Ontario. Obviously it’ll be open pit mine, traditional truck shovel mine, the entire site will produce about 367,000 ounces on average per year. In the first six years, it’ll be a little higher, we’ll see an average about 469,000 ounces on an annual basis.”

The new mill capacity is going to be 13.1 million tons per year. “The maximum mine output is going to be 70 million tons per year, so we’ll have a bit of a stockpile. And the operating life of the asset is about 18 years. Life of mine waste/ore stripping ratio is 2.71. Average grade just under 1 gram of gold per ton. We’re going to be forecasting to create about $10 billion in economic activity and about $5 billion in wages, direct and indirect throughout the life of the mine, a very important asset to the region for sure.”

The mine is located in the traditional territory of the Matagami First Nation and Flying Post First Nation. The company has IBAs with each community, as well as a memorandum of understanding with the Métis Nation of Ontario.

“Our two closest neighbors being Mattagami First Nation which is about 40 kilometers north of the site and Gogama which is about 20 kilometers away, and we do have very close relationships with both those communities. One of the key features of our community relations framework is our socio-

Côté Gold prepares for plant construction economic management monitoring plans that we’ve established both with our IBA partners as well as the community of Gogama,” said Garbutt.

Garbutt says the importance of these plans is the foundation to record baseline data for various social and economic indicators in the community which provides a structure to be monitored over time.

The idea is together with the communities, they’ll observe trends, and make adjustments as needed.

“But overall, our approach to the communities has been really about a strong focus on engagement, which is really about being part of the community and not really, only working with pacifying objections.

It’s about genuine strategies. It’s about participation and investment just so we can ensure sustainable prosperity for these communities.”

Garbutt says the company is tracking well on construction milestones.

At the site, the big focus for the company this year is official relocation and earthworks work in the pit area. “At the site, the work requires a significant amount of water course realignment.”

One of the big challenges is relocating fish. Replacing the habitat removed by mining activities is really one of the big focuses for early construction at Côté. As you know the Côté deposit is actually located in part between a small lake, so redirecting the water to create a new lake, relocating fish to other water bodies is a big part of the work. We started this work last summer, it will continue throughout the construction period this year.”

Another key milestone for IAMGOLD in 2021 is advancing to plant construction. The majority of work this year is earthworks, site

prep phase, and getting ready for construction. “We’re finishing construction on the permanent camp. I think the name for the camp is going to be called Camp Eagle Lodge.

We are now thinking about how to

add some attractive features for the people that are staying there for recreational purposes, so there’s a lot of work still to do.”

A big part of the plans for operaCont`d on Pg. 50

Nuna Group of Companies

• All-Weather Roads & Runways • Contract Mining • Dams & Frozen Core Dams • Dikes • Earthworks & Site Development • Exploration Support

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Building the mine of the future

Cont`d from Pg. 49

tion is autonomous mining and autonomous equipment. The open pit mine will be serviced by a fleet of 23 CAT 793F autonomous trucks as well as 6 Epiroc Pit Viper 231s.

“We like to think this could be the mine of the future, but really it’s the mine of today. And the technology around autonomous mining may not be common here in Ontario, but the technology is certainly deployed extensively throughout the world with very successful results.

On the bottom point, CAT who engages our partner with the autonomous trucks is really a global leader in putting this technology together at similar operations,” said Garbutt.

The company believes that implementing advanced technology is instrumental in the long-term profitability of Côté. The impact of autonomous haulage and drilling on costs spread across the tonnages with mining is significant. Some of the cost savings are driven by the advantages of autonomous equipment is higher equipment productivity, no shift changes, better opPage 50

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timal positioning for truck shovel interactions, and reduced maintenance. “Because the continuous operation and the operation within the standard parameters for the trucks is almost guaranteed, reduced manpower requirements but really resulting in ultimately a reduced camp size, and accommodation costs,” said Garbutt.

Garbutt says the processing plant design is well advanced and orders for many long lead items have already been placed. One of the unique features of the plant design is a high pressure grinding rolling mill which is going to be the largest HPGR in Canada. The technology is not new, but it’s uncommon in Canada. The hardness and nature of the ore at Côté makes it well suited to this application.

“Some of the benefits of HPGR certainly are reduced energy consumption compared to traditional sag ball mill configurations and certainly lower maintenance,” said Garbutt. “The plant itself is going to be highly automated with an advanced comminution circuit that

includes two-stage grinding which has a ball mill, and it’s supported by two vertical mills. The vertical mills, another interesting thing, largest on the market and certainly our proven technology and have been proven to be effective at several of other sites.”

The company is rapidly advancing the project and already they are looking at expansion with the Gosselin zone, just north of the Côté pit.

The company is currently drilling and has returned some fairly wide intervals of mineralization hosted within some of the same type of altered differentiated intrusions that the Côté deposit contains.

“The exploration target is for about a 3-5 million ounce resource at grades ranging from 0.7 to 1.2 grams per ton of gold.”

The company’s hiring timelines are also underway. “We believe it’s an opportunity to work differently.

At Côté, we believe in integrating people and technology in a unique way. And we want people to be interested in doing things differently.”

IAMGOLD says it will apply high operational standards for safety, for performance, for efficiency, as they take an active role in shaping the future of mining. “We want the people we bring along to do the same. So we need people that are curious about mining technology, people that have the ability to learn on the job, people that can adapt.

We believe, progress in mining is done through hard-fought learnings, earned through experience, and so we do need experienced people and good training programs so we can bring people along for the journey with us.”

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Wesdome excited about Abitibi’s ongoing potential If there’s one company that epitomizes the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, it’s Wesdome – which bills itself as Canada’s next mid-tier producer. The company has an operating mine on the western fringe of the AGB near Lake Superior and another on the eastern side in Quebec.

By Kevin Vincent

Wesdome has been a quiet success story. “It’s really been a great adventure being a part of a company like Wesdome which is on the eastern part of the Abitibi and in the Wawa area to be on the western part of the Abitibi. It is definitely the same sort of setting,” said Duncan Middlemiss, President and CEO. “The Kiena Mine (Quebec) which we’ve just announced the restart to, is really exciting and a big part of us becoming Canada’s next mid-tier gold producer. We have an existing asset in Wawa, producing close to 100,000 ounces a year and now we’ve got a positive pre-feasibility study at Kiena in which the board has approved to go ahead. We’ll start production quite shortly, the infrastructure is all there. It’s a historic property that was developed in the 80s and 90s and run by Placer Dome. We’re quite proud to be able to come to this juncture.”

Middlemiss says the proposition for Wesdome that has made them successful over the past five years is jurisdiction. He says the Abitibi is one of the world-class jurisdictions.

The company’s production base is in Wawa, about 50 kilometers from town and the Kiena Mine is just outside of Val-d’Or, Quebec. “So quite frankly, I don’t think we could get in any better of a jurisdiction than what we are currently enjoying,” said Middlemiss addressing delegates of the Mining The Abitibi Virtual Conference hosted recently Page 52

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Pictured: Duncan Middlemiss, President and CEO, Wesdome

by Canadian Trade-Ex and Mining Life & Exploration News.

“We’re also blessed with high grade. The Eagle Mine’s has reserves of 13.4 grams. We just declared resources at the Kiena Mine at 11.9 grams, so we’re definitely blessed with some high grade here and I’d say both areas have a lot of exploration potential which we’re really starting to uncover.”

Wesdome has huge exploration budgets at both properties. “As I say, we love them equally. We’ve got 16 million dollars set aside for the Eagle River property in Ontario and 16 million dollars set aside for the Kiena property. So this by far is the company’s largest endeavour in the exploration field, ever.”

Middlemiss says jurisdictionally, it is low risk, but the company also has great existing infrastructure. At

Kiena for example, the head frame and the mill are there. “We’ve already started the mill up to process bulk samples. So we’ve basically de-risked the Kiena Mine restart significantly by doing some of these events, everything is in good shape there. And we’re quite confident that production should start in the third quarter, albeit a lower amount than what it would get to in a couple of years, but certainly, it’s going to be contributing to the bottom line.”

When it comes to Wesdome’s management, the top personnel are part of the former St Andrew management team which Middlemiss was associated with until 2016 when they were sold to Kirkland Lake Gold.

Guidance at Eagle River this year is 92,000-105,000 ounces while costs are around $1,000-$1,100 US an ounce. Reserves are currently at about 581,000 ounces at Eagle River. Middlemiss says there’s a good resource base for the future and there’s over 300,000 ounces of combined high-grade mineralization.

“The Kiena Mine, it really continues to generate some very exciting results for us, both on exploration, and through the technical study we just see the robustness of the project and the kind of returns that we’re going to get here. And so right now, we view the pre-feasibility study as a base case we’re able to show everybody how we can

Cont`d on Pg. 54

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Wesdome prioritizes local employment and procurement do an average of 84,000 ounces, however, we all believe it’s going to certainly grow from there. This is a base case. You can see the reserves newly declared 600,000 ounces at almost 12 grams and a lot of resources on the property there to convert into reserves, so potentially a very good mine life and some really good upside here at both properties.”

Wesdome prioritizes local employment and procurement. 86% of the workforce at Kiena is local, while Eagle which competes heavily with other mines in the region is at 46% local.

“We have people coming from Rouyn-Noranda, all the way from

Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury, so it’s a very large area as Wawa is a smaller community and certainly very demanded upon by what I would term as a fairly active mining industry going on there right now,” said Middlemiss.

“Throughout the pandemic, our employees have done fantastic. Our contractors and consultants have done fantastic. I always knock on wood when I tell people that we have not had one case of COVID which has impacted our operations.

We’re very fortunate about that.

We try to support all the communities we’re within. We donate to the Wawa food bank. We donate to the same programs in Val-d’Or, Que-

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bec. We want to make sure that the communities are good.”

When it comes to procurement, jurisdiction plays a role once again.

“When we look at the information from the Ontario Mining Association about every dollar invested into mining comes back four times. We see Timmins. We see Sudbury. We see Val-d’Or, Rouyn area. These are all fantastic mining centers, great for suppliers, expertise, everything that we need, we can find here in the Abitibi, so we’re very fortunate.”

To date, Wesdome has not had any environmental incidents. “As a matter of fact, for quite a while, governance, we’ve actually made the Globe and Mail, it’s called the 2021 Board Games. We’re within the top 20 highest ranking companies in materials, so a lot of the miners are in there. So we’ve certainly come a long way with, I would say, our shareholders expectations and how we manage the business, how we are accountable to everybody. According to Middlemiss, Wesdome is on the hunt for other opportunities.

“We look around the Abitibi, and we always see these older properties that have lost some luster or they’ve been shut down, and then somebody has new ideas about how we might be able to find the next mine and certainly, we’ve been successful. And when I look at the Abitibi, we just see all the great mines here.

The Upper Beaver from Agnico, that was a past producer of course, Kiena was. Macassa Mine, or look at the Dome Mine how long is that going on forever. There’s more to give here.”

“And I think with new ideas, and new theories, and the hundreds of millions of ounces which have been extracted and what is left to find we’re very happy to be right here in the middle of the Abitibi. This is a great place to be.”

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EV SUPPLY CHAIN 2021 Federal Budget Doubles Down on Battery Electric Vehicle Supply Chain

By Kevin Vincent

The elephant in the EV room is daunting. Manufacturers and countries around the world are trying to avoid getting run over by China in the global race to build electric vehicles. And it’s a big game.

Apple is looking to out hustle Tesla Motors with a brand-new electric vehicle. Ford announced the company will double its investment in EVs spending $22 billion in the coming years.

“We are accelerating all our plans — breaking constraints, increasing battery capacity, improving costs and getting more electric vehicles into our product cycle plan,” explained Ford CEO Jim Farley in July.

Ford, General Motors, and every other automaker are rushing into electric vehicles. The legacy automakers thought Elon Musk was a joke. They failed to see the trends nor listen to customers.

Canada is not taking a back seat.

The federal government announced massive investments in the sector in their most recent budget. While the Mining Association of Canada is calling Ottawa’s modest first steps on rare earths, it says it is Insufficient to displace a reliance Page 56

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on China.

The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) welcomed several expanded and refined measures proposed in Budget 2021 to help position Canada for success on the “Mines to Mobility” pathway.

Designed to support the establishment and growth of a domestic battery electric vehicle (BEV) supply chain, Budget 2021’s proposed expansion of the Strategic Innovation Fund - Net Zero Accelerator to $8 billion, and the introduction of tax incentives and project scaling supports are important tools for success.

“To establish an end-to-end BEV supply chain in Canada, we need to expand the production and manufacturing of critical minerals in Canada,” said Pierre Gratton, President and CEO of MAC. “We need battery grade nickel, cobalt, lithium and graphite and we are pleased to see programs and tax measures that we believe can support filling or expanding domestic production of these materials.”

Specific supports targeting Rare Earth Elements (REEs), including the establishment of a Critical Minerals Centre of Excellence that will focus on coordinating federal policy

and programs on critical minerals and $36.8 million over three years for federal research and development to advance critical battery mineral processing and refining expertise, are positive but modest according to MAC. REEs, a subset of critical minerals, are used in a wide range of essential technologies including in healthcare, defence, clean energy and telecommunications. To date, China has coerced the market for these key materials, developing monopoly-like control over their production and distribution, thus rendering the rest of the world reliant on China for procurement. To help address this vulnerability, Canada and the United States signed a Joint Action Plan to partner in creating greater North American resilience and independence in the extraction, processing and manufacturing of REEs and magnets.

“Critical minerals are essential to the items we use every day and increasing geopolitical uncertainty has focused attention on the precariousness of existing supply sources, classified by Canada’s allies as the primary materials on Cont`d on Pg. 58

80

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EV SUPPLY CHAIN

Canada should grow market share as a preferred global critical minerals supplier Cont`d from Pg. 56

which their economies and national security depend,” said Gratton.

“Canada has the potential to be a global leader in this space, achieve critical mineral self-sufficiency and meet our allies’ growing demand for critical minerals all while doing so in an environmentally responsible way. While the supports included in Budget 2021 signal strong support for establishing a battery supply chain, including the minerals and metals that support battery manufacturing, more must be done to specifically advance REE development in Canada if we are to be an equal and credible partner with the United States in shoring up a domestic North American supply chain for these materials.”

Last year, MAC released the results of a national poll, which highlighted public enthusiasm for Canada to grow market share as a preferred global supplier of critical minerals, based on abundance and leading environmental standards. Almost 90% of those surveyed by Abacus Data liked the idea of Canada being a preferred source for critical minerals and would like to see govPage 58

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ernment take a number of steps to support this approach.

Other aspects of the Budget that will have a positive impact on Canada’s mining sector include: $319 million over seven years, starting in 2021-22, with $1.5 million in remaining amortization, to Natural Resources Canada to support research, development, and demonstrations that would improve the commercial viability of carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies, and a commitment to consult on establishing a tax credit to support uptake. $239.8 million in the Student Work Placement Program in 2021-22 to support work-integrated learning opportunities for post-secondary students. $960 million over three years, beginning in 2021-22, to Employment and Social Development Canada for a new Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program. $40.4 million over three years, start-

ing in 2021-22, to support feasibility and planning of hydroelectricity and grid interconnection projects in the North. This funding could advance projects, such as the Atlin Hydro Expansion Project in Yukon and the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link Project in Nunavut. Projects will provide clean power to northern communities and help reduce emissions from mining projects.

Several measures are in place to accelerate the Canadian Hydrogen Strategy.

“We are committed to being a constructive partner in the fight against climate change,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC’s President and CEO. “Our mined materials are required inputs for green technology, like electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar panels, and it is critical that these minerals and metals be responsibly sourced with the smallest GHG footprint possible.

As an energy intensive industry, we know we have an important role to play in lessening our carbon footprint, and this new TSM protocol is intended to help our members do just that.”

Mining Association Of Canada Report Highlights on Essential Nature of Canadian Mining in Ongoing Global Economic Recovery

By Kevin Vincent

The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) released its annual Facts & Figures report recently, a comprehensive overview of current trends, including updated statistics and analysis, in Canada’s mining sector.

With the impact of COVID-19 and the resulting heightened demand for minerals and metals, Canada’s mining industry is poised to play a leadership role in economic recovery efforts, both domestically and internationally, as the pandemic continues to have a massive impact on our daily lives.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the significant role the mining sector plays in ensuring the materials people and businesses need now more than ever are both available and responsibly sourced,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC’s President and CEO. “With demand for minerals and metals expected to grow as both the Canadian and global economy recover from the COVID-related downturn, Canada’s mining industry is proud to be recognized as a responsible producer, providing global leadership in corporate social responsibility and environmental stewardship through Towards Sustainable Mining.

This year’s Facts & Figures report highlights just how integral our sector is to the products needed during this unprecedented time.”

Highlights from the most recent Facts & Figures report include: · In 2019, the mining sector contributed $109 Billion, or 5%, of Canada’s total nominal GDP.

· The industry’s direct and indirect employment accounts for 719,000 jobs, accounting for one in every 26 jobs in Canada. · Proportionally, the mining industry is the largest heavy industrial employer of Indigenous peoples and provided over 16,500 jobs to community members. · The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange are the world’s number one mining and exploration listing venues, where 37% of global mining equity has been raised over the last five years. · Richly endowed with natural resources, Canada ranks among the top five countries in the global production of 17 minerals and metals. · Valued at $106 billion in 2018, mineral exports accounted for 19% of Canada’s total domestic exports.

With this good news also comes the need to focus on where Canada’s mining industry still has room to improve when it comes to its global competitiveness: While 2020 saw a modest increase in the value of mining projects planned and under construction from 2020 to 2030 (by $2 billion yearover-year), the total 10-year projected value ($82 billion) remains nearly 50% below the 2014 level of $160 billion.

Canada continued to lose ground to Australia in the competition for the world’s top destination for nonferrous exploration spending in 2019, accounting for 13% of total global expenditures in 2019. Capital spending in the sector is projected to account for 4.9% of Canada’s total at $11.9 billion, also 4590 Regional Road 15 down year-over-year.

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Agnico expanding reserves with a record exploration spend

By Kevin Vincent

Agnico Eagle Mines is well into its seventh decade of operation with no signs of slowing down. The company’s exploration focus remains on pipeline projects, near-mine opportunities and mineral reserve and mineral resource replacement and growth with a big emphasis on properties in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt.

Agnico enjoyed an impressive first half of 2021. “Last year, the company generated strong exploration results at several of its key projects.

As a result, in 2021, we embarked on the most ambitious exploration program in Agnico Eagle’s 64-year history to investigate the full potential of existing operations and key

MAC Report Cont`d from Pg. 59

eroding, with other jurisdictions capturing greater market share for growing demand.

“Critical to bolstering the industry’s domestic and international leadership is a predictable and consistent domestic policy and regulatory environment, with proactive and bold policy to position the country for longer term success, particularly in the face of the pandemic,” continued Gratton. “There are tremendous opportunities to do that in the areas of critical and battery minerals – arguably the foundation for any resurgence in Canadian advanced manufacturing and essential elements in the move towards a lower-carbon future.”

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projects in the Company’s pipeline,” said Sean Boyd, Agnico Eagle’s Chief Executive Officer.

“At mid-year, we are continuing to see positive results from this initiative, with drilling encountering a new parallel gold zone at East Gouldie, significant high-grade mineralization that further expands the Footwall Zone at Upper Beaver, and results confirming the potential to expand the Doris Deposit at Hope Bay. In addition, we continue to generate significant exploration results at key production assets such as Kittila and Meliadine,” added Boyd.

Some of the key exploration highlights during the first half of 2021 include:

Odyssey Underground Project at Canadian Malartic – Infill drilling continues to return solid results in the core of the East Gouldie deposit, with recent results returning up to 6.3 grams per tonne (“g/t”) gold over 52.0 metres at 1,109 metres depth, including 8.9 g/t gold over 21.0 metres at 1,102 metres depth. The eastern extension of the deposit continues to be tested and a new mineralized horizon was discovered approximately 400 metres south of the East Gouldie deposit and returning 3.5 g/t gold over 8.6 metres at 2,103 metres depth, demonstrating the excellent exploration upside for new discoveries in the vicinity of the Odyssey Project

Public enthusiasm for enhanced critical minerals development in Canada is high, with almost 90% of those surveyed for MAC by Abacus Data liking the idea of Canada being a preferred source for critical minerals and wanting to see government take a number of steps to support this approach. It is clear that these essential elements required as inputs in the goods, including clean and healthcare technologies, we create and on which Canadians and our economy depend represent an important opportunity for the country’s mining sector and economy as a whole.

“We feel energized by federal commitments pertaining to mining and critical minerals in particular, including the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan and the Canada–U.S. Joint Action Plan on Critical Miner-

als Collaboration, and we look forward to working with the new Biden administration given the enormous opportunity before us for enhanced partnerships between Canada and the US in this space,” concluded Gratton. “Our industry has a significant role to play in Canada’s economic recovery and can provide leadership in the critical minerals space, the time to seize the moment is now.”

The Mining Association of Canada is the national organization for the Canadian mining industry. Its members account for most of Canada’s production of base and precious metals, uranium, diamonds, metallurgical coal and mined oil sands, and are actively engaged in mineral exploration, mining, smelting, refining and semi-fabrication.

Kirkland Lake Project – The conversion and expansion drilling program at depth at the Upper Beaver deposit continues to intersect significant highgrade mineralization, further expanding the Footwall Zone. The new results include highlight intercepts such as 21.2 g/t gold and 0.67% copper over 14.8 metres at 1,190 metres depth Meliadine – Exploration and conversion drilling is ramping up close to existing deposits and in the surrounding region. Recent drilling at depth in the Pump deposit demonstrates the excellent potential to increase mineral resources with intercepts such as 22.6 g/t gold over 4.2 metres at 508 metres depth, approximately 250 metres below the current mineral resource envelope.

Regional exploration has resumed between the Tiriganiaq and Discovery deposits, encountering interesting results on the Aquarius occurrence such as 21.7 g/t gold over 3.5 metres at 93 metres depth Hope Bay – Activity is ramping up with a total of seven drill rigs now operating on the Doris and Madrid deposits. Recent results at Doris confirm the potential to expand the BTD Extension Zone (currently being mined), with results including: 10.9 g/t gold over 2.5 metres at 309 metres depth, potentially expanding the zone 100 metres north of the current mineral reserve limits; and 12.0 g/t gold over 7.1 metres at 282 metres depth in the West Valley Zone, potentially extending the zone along plunge by 75 metres from the current mineral reserve outline. The results confirm the potential to expand zones currently being mined at Doris while drilling is ramping up at Madrid Kittila – Exploration drilling in the Sisar Zone continues to show the potential to significantly expand mineral resources and mineral reserves at depth. Recent drilling has provided the deepest intercept to date at the Kittila mine, intersecting 10.7 g/t gold over 7.8 metres in the Sizar Zone at 1,957 metres depth

and confirming that the Sisar Zone remains open at depth and extends significantly below the current lower limit of the mineral resources at 1,540 metres below surface Santa Gertrudis – Exploration drilling of the Amelia deposit is extending and validating the lateral continuity of high-grade gold and silver intercepts, with highlights including 2.7 g/t gold and 11 g/t silver over 33.9 metres at 395 metres depth, which includes 5.7 g/t gold and 15 g/t silver over 8.3 metres at 402 metres depth Based on significant exploration results in 2020 at several operating mines and pipeline projects, the company initiated a review of the full potential of its portfolio of assets and increased its exploration budget in 2021 to approximately $163 million (from $113 million in 2020), making it the largest exploration budget in the company’s history.

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Wallbridge Mining Continues Impressive Exploration Results Francois Demers, P. Eng. – Vice President, Mining And Projects

By Kevin Vincent

The Abitibi has been home to hundreds of world class mining companies for more than a century and it is far from being depleted. One of the companies that has captured the attention of investors and the Quebec mining fraternity is Wallbridge Mining and its Fenelon Project.

VP of Exploration, Francois Demers told the Mining The Abitibi Confer-

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ence that Fenelon is on track with its aggressive, well-funded exploration program as it looks to become Northwestern Quebec’s next big gold producer.

“It’s a great jurisdiction for value creation,” said Demers. “It’s one of the top jurisdictions in Canada and across the world for investment and project development. It has a hundred years of mining history, many ounces have been pulled from the Abitibi area. It’s a host of 21 gold deposits with a large skilled work-

force, mining friendly policies in an established area. We’ve got great infrastructure and strategic partnerships. All in all, it’s a great district.”

Wallbridge has holdings on a 90-kilometer stretch from the Ontario-Quebec border, from due east of Detour Gold stretching 90 kilometers just north of Matagami and that’s where you find the Fenelon Gold system as well as the Martiniere Gold deposit which has a resource on. Demers says the company has not done much work on Martiniere since discovering Fenelon, however, he says it does have some significant opportunities as well.

“This is a very underexplored land package. There has been some work conducted in the past, however, Wallbridge has been the most active here in the last few years, drilling 100,000 meters in 2020 and targeting 170,000 meters this year. We’ve been active on the package since 2016 where the work on Fenelon initially started and then of course that story grew in 2017, in 2018 and to now up to 2021.”

In terms of corporate responsibility and ESG, Wallbridge is doing its part. “We focus on several pillars, being social responsibility, cultural heritage and

diversity, health and safety well-being, corporate governance, the environment, and being good economic contributors.”

“We are working on developing a cultural awareness program for our site as well as a cultural center at Fenelon focused on diversity and inclusion and building some awareness amongst our teams as to our operations being in the traditional territories of indigenous peoples.”

On the health and safety side, Wallbridge had a stretch of good performance. “We went 683 days through 2019 and 2020 without a reportable injury. In 2020, we were awarded the PDAC Gold award in health and safety.

And of course, as anybody else, we have good effective COVID-19 response.: Wallbridge has 200 permanent jobs associated with the Fenelon project with greater than 70% of the workforce residing or coming from the Abitibi region. “Our annual spend this year is around $80 million and nearly all of our procurement and basically everything, our supplies services and our personnel come from Quebec other than some personnel coming from Ontario,” said De-

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mers.

The company has supportive stakeholders in the First Nations and the surrounding communities.

“We do focus on local employment and facilitating access to our project and 25% of our workforce right now comes from indigenous communities. We recently participated in a funding announcement for road improvements for $1.5 million which will improve access to our project but also and more so provide access to the territory from the town of Matagami, reducing travel distance, improving access to the overall area.”

Wallbridge has some influential financial horsepower on board. Kirkland Lake Gold is a 9.9% investor while billionaire precious metals investor Eric Sprott holds over 20%.

Previous advanced exploration activity on the project in 2001 and in 2004 saw other companies conducted some exploration and bulk sampling activities. However, in 2018 that’s when things really took off with Wallbridge conducting an exploration campaign of 2,000 meters of underground development and a 33,000 ton bulk sample.

In 2019, the company followed that up with 40,000 meters of exploration and in 2020 with 100,000 meters as well as expansion of the camp from 80 to 160 people.

“In 2021, we plan on executing 2,500 meters of underground development into Area 51 and 170,000 meters of exploration ongoing. So, when we take a step back and we look at 2018 or 2016-17 when we first started, it was a flooded open pit with one metal building on site and a little bit of historic core stored on site. The infrastructure had been established in 2001 and 2004 and basically had been dormant ever since,” said Demers.

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In 2018, Wallbridge took on a project of bulk sampling out of the Gabbro Zone. “The Gabbro Zone would be what you see directly underneath the flooded open pit at the time. The work included dewatering the open pit, establishing infrastructure, developing about 2,000 meters underground, and establishing an exploration drift and then bulk sampling 33,500 tons at 18.5 grams per ton gold, and we realized 98% recovery on them.

What you see there is the infrastructure that was put in place underneath the open pit, basically a ramp, some open stoping, and an exploration gate.”

One of the key elements of the Fenelon project is being responsible. “In terms of environmental management and using surface water and using water in general, our underground workings are continuously dewatered and maintained, especially with our current underground development activities. Surface water is diverted around the site wherever possible and then water used for activities at the site is treated and discharged,” said Demers.

“One of the things that we did when we took on this project was making sure that we were responsible with cleanup at the beginning and at the outset or onset.

An expensive cleanup effort was carried out of leftover materials from previous owner activities. We had over 200 barrels of fuel and oil that were safely removed and disposed of offsite. And one of our important focuses as well is diversity. We have a widely diverse team at site, people of all nationalities and providence, and again we encourage as much as possible local participation. We hire from the Abitibi as much as possible and from the First Nations communities as much as possible.”

As Demers wrapped up his Mining The Abitibi presentation Mining Life put him on the spot about the company’s conservative approach.

“I joined in 2018 and for myself it was the first gold project I really joined and got into, spending most of my career in base metals. And I did my research before joining on and I saw that there was a lot of potential with this project, and I’m really, really happy that I joined at the time I joined. You know, back in 2018 when I joined, the share price was $0.65 and market cap was 10 million. When you look at today, we’ve gone as high as $1.30 last year, but we’ve been hovering in around the $0.60-0.65 range and $500 million market cap now. And it really speaks to the team and it speaks to the potential.”

“When you look at the belt itself, when you look at the activities to use Marz’s (President Marz Kord) words, in southern Abitibi where all you really needed to do

was kick some moss over and there’s the mineralization, where we are, there’s quite a bit of overburden.

And so, the effort that’s required to identify the resource to make the discovery to start and then identify and start to outline it, there’s just tremendous effort required.”

The company is spending $80 million this year on this exploration campaign and underground development

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to set itself up to de-risk the project and continue to understand the mineralization and the size of it.

“Our main resource coming out that we’re targeting at the end of Q3, to me, is really just going to be the start of this, it’s going to provide the information we need to start to evaluate the economics and move this project forward. So, if everything comes together, it has the potential,” added Demers.

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LEVERT, President, Richard Levert

For more than 35-years, LEVERT has been a leader in the staffing industry by being one of the only placement agencies seeking out skilled personnel and hiring them as an in-house team of paid staff professionals.

As an established link between employers and employment candidates, LEVERT completes the re-

cruiting process and screening of applicants in order to provide superior industrial personnel and staffing solutions for their clients’ long-term and short-term employment needs to national and international companies in the mining sector and other heavy industries.

Founder and President, Richard Levert, defines the strength of his organization in three words: People, Partnerships, Experience.

The organization operates a unique business model that treats their 600+ placement workers as employees and not as temporary help.

Partnering with employers as a complement to their HR Department, LEVERT provides stability in employment, conducts training, pays employee wages and medical benefits, offers employees the opportunity to payroll deduct RSP’s, and manages health & safety which results in a significant benefit and

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less risk to the employer.

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LEVERT is strategically positioned in the heart of the mining hub with two offices in Northern Ontario, one in Quebec and an additional office in St. John’s NFLD to service the oil & gas sector.

“Our safety experience is well documented and has allowed us to provide skilled personnel to the mining industry here and in many parts of the world including the Arctic, Kaskhstan, Suriname, Dominican Republic and Columbia”.

Richard Levert is passionate about the importance of long-term relationships with both his employees and employers who count on their ethical way of doing business.

“Nothing is more rewarding than seeing someone come in for a temporary job placement and watching them walk out with a career.”

Transformer les opportunités d’emploi en carrière Depuis plus de 35 ans, LEVERT est un chef de file dans l’industrie de la dotation en étant l’une des seules agences de placement à rechercher du personnel qualifié et les embaucher en tant qu’équipe professionnelle interne.

En tant que lien établi entre les employeurs et les candidats à l’emploi, LEVERT complète le processus de recrutement et de sélection des candidats afin de fournir un personnel industriel supérieur.

Levert accompli des solutions de dotation en personnel pour les besoins d’emploi à long et à court terme de leurs clients, aux entreprises nationales et internationales et d’autres industries lourdes.

Président et PDG, Richard Levert, définit la force de son organisation en trois mots : Personnes, Partenariats, Expérience.

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L’organisation exploite un modèle commercial unique qui traite ses 600+ travailleurs en placement comme des employés et non comme une aide temporaire.

En partenariat avec les employeurs en complément de leur service des ressources humaines, LEVERT offre une stabilité d’emploi, organise des formations, paie les salaires et les prestations médicales des employés, offre aux employés la possibilité de déduire les RSP des salaires et gère la santé et la sécurité, ce qui se traduit par un avantage significatif et moins de risques à l’employeur.

Le défi consiste à répondre à une demande croissante de placements qualifiés.

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dans le nord de l’Ontario, un au Québec et un bureau supplémentaire à St. John’s NFLD pour désservir le secteur pétrolier et gazier.

“Notre expérience en matière de sécurité est bien documentée et nous a permis de fournir du personnels qualifiés à l’industrie minière ici et dans de nombreuses régions du monde, y compris l’Arctique, le Kaskhstan, le Suriname, la République Dominicaine et la Colombie.”

Richard Levert est passionné par l’importance des relations à long terme avec ses employés et ses employeurs qui comptent sur leur façon éthique de faire des affaires.

“Rien n’est plus gratifiant que de voir quelqu’un venir pour un placement temporaire et de le voir repartir avec une carrière.”

Red Pine Exploration Inc. (TSX-V: RPX)

is a Canadian gold and precious metals explorer primarily involved in the identification, acquisition and development of properties in Ontario, riding a 40% share price increase YTD. Red Pine’s flagship 100% owned Wawa Gold Project is located 2 km southeast of the Municipality of Wawa, in Northern Ontario. The property, comprising 6,804 hectares, hosts several former mines with a combined historic production of 120,000 oz gold. The property currently hosts a NI 43-101 resource of over 700,000 oz of gold (both indicated and inferred) at more than 5 gpt gold, contained between surface at 350 metre depth, that Red Pine is aggressively working towards expanding.

The Company is supported by Chairman of the Board Paul Mar-

tin, former CEO of Detour Gold and Directors boasting a high pedigree of experience at Alamos, Barrick, Generation Mining, Detour Gold, and the Ontario Energy Board. Led by CEO, Quentin Yarie, with over 25 years of experience in mineral exploration, Red Pine is strengthening its position by further validating its potential as a major resource and player in the Michipicoten region.

Red Pine is strengthening the Wawa Gold Project land package through the acquisition of new mining claims and recently announced 15,000 metres of diamond drilling

planned for 2021 on various highgrade exploration targets. Recent press has outlined positive metallurgical results with over 90% recovery rates, with an updated NI 43-101 to be filed in near term.

Red Pine is located in a prolific gold district, Ontario’s Tier 1 Michipicoten Greenstone Belt, that has experienced a vast influx of recent gold mining activity and investment, surrounded by major producers including Argonaut Gold, Barrick, Newmont and Alamos.

For more information and recent press releases, please visit: https://www.redpineexp.com

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Serving the North since 1974 Specializing in ore, aggregate, sand hauling and floating service

Robert 705-266-4076 | Domenic 705-266-5147 6943 Highway 101 East, Porcupine, Ontario P0N 1C0 Page 69

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Goldseek Resources ANNOUNCES 5,000M DRILL PROGRAM AT BESCHEFER PROJECT

By Kevin Vincent

Among the majors and all the juniors that dominate the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, there are plenty of lesserknown companies that are actively exploring the region in promising locations. One of those companies is Goldseek Resources.

Earlier this year, Goldseek announced a development strategy for its Beschefer Project. On July 8, 2021, Goldseek Resources Inc. (CSE:GSK) (“Goldseek” or the “Company”) announced a 5,000-meter drill program on its Beschefer Project. The Beschefer Project is located approximately 30 kilometres southwest of Wallbridge’s Fenelon Gold property. On March 3rd, 2021, the Company entered into an option agreement on the Beschefer Project to earn 100% over 4 years from Wallbridge Mining Company Limited “We are excited to start exploration on the Beschefer Project, which has demonstrated size and grade potential,” said Goldseek’s President & CEO Jon Deluce.

Since announcing the option to earn 100% of the Project in March 2021, Goldseek has been busy modelling the mineralized system currently defined by relatively widely spaced drilling. The modelling has confirmed continuity, and the historical results highlight the significant high-grade potential in the system. We look forward to rePage 70

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leasing details on our model and detailed drill plans shortly,” stated Jon. Approximately 17,000 meters of historical core is located in Timmins and the company has identified 500 meters of unsampled core, which it believes could contain mineralization and therefore will be subject to sampling; additionally, the technical team will review some parts of the core to describe the project’s specific intersections further to strengthen the geological model of the mineralization; and finally, the company is also assessing access to the property and will discuss with project stakeholders to ensure completion of the future work programs and to plan them accordingly.

The Beschefer Project covers approximately 962 acres and is in the Northern Abitibi Greenstone Belt, 14 km east of the past-producing polymetallic Selbaie Mine, 45 km northeast of the Casa Berardi Mine and 30 kilometres from Wallbridge’s Fenelon Gold Project. Historically, the area has mainly been explored for volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits similar to the Matagami camp and the Selbaie Mine.

Goldseek has budgeted approximately 5,000m of diamond core drilling for high priority infill and extension targets at its Beschefer Project along the Detour Gold Trend. Drilling is expected to begin in July 2021, and a Quebec-based diamond drill contractor will be selected to carry out the drilling. The Company views the Beschefer Project as being an advanced gold exploration project with significant near-term resource potential.

The Company is currently finalizing its’ 3D model of the multiple gold zones/lenses at the Project and will release the model and full drill targeting details in the coming weeks.

Highlights of the best intersections to date include 55.63 g/t gold over 5.57 metres in hole BE13-038 (including 224 g/t over 1.23m ; 13.95 g/t over 0.68m and 13.70 g/t over 0.73m), 13.07 g/t gold over 8.75 metres

in hole B12-014 (including 58.5 g/t over 1.5m), 3.56 g/t gold over 28.4 metres in hole B14-006 (including 7.42 g/t over 5.5m), 10.28 g/t gold over 8.00 metres in hole B14-35 (including 86.74 g/t over 0.60m), and 12.40 g/t gold over 3.78 metres in hole B11-003. True width in these sections vary between 89% and 99% of the intercepted width.

The mineralization shows high-grade gold-bearing structures hosted in a lower grade envelope, which highlights the regional potential along the already defined shear zones located on the Property and continuous large-scale gold-bearing structure (B-14 Zone) with known continuity and additional known parallel mineralized shear zones.

Goldseek Resources Inc. is a Canadian exploration company with a portfolio of assets in Ontario and Quebec. With six projects in world-class mining locations, the company hopes to find the next major discovery in the mining camps of Urban Barry, Quevillon, Val D’Or, the Detour Gold Trend in Quebec, and the Hemlo goldfields of Ontario.

Goldseek looks forward to delivering shareholder value through it`s rigorous exploration and development plan. Our mission is to find the next major discovery, said Jon Deluce with optimism.

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First Nation Partnerships

Continue to flourish with mining sector

Photo Credit Adam Scotti: (L-R) Mattagami First Nation Chief Chad Boisonneau, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Doug Ford at Ground Breaking Ceremony at IAMGOLD’s Côté Gold Mine.

By Kevin Vincent

It doesn’t matter what part of northern Ontario you live in, chances are you’ll hear a lot about First Nations signing benefit agreements with both major and junior mining companies.

Take, for instance, the agreement signed by Matagami and Flying Post First Nations with IAMGOLD for the billion-dollar Cote Lake Mine. Matagami First Nation Chief Chad Boissoneau called the agreement, “A win-win for everybody,” he said. “I’m looking forward to this, our community is looking forward to this project.”

According to Natural Resources Canada, the minerals and metals industry is a major contributor to Canada’s economic well-being and is also vital to Page 72

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the economic and social cohesion of many rural and remote communities.

Exploration and mining activities can generate wealth and socio-economic growth in many Aboriginal communities through partnerships, employment, skills development, business and spin-off opportunities, and participation in decisions and activities undertaken to protect the environment. A mine can generate benefits that outlive the mine itself and therefore can help build the community’s self-reliance.

Flying Post Chief Murray Ray called the relationship with IAMGOLD a “family partnership.”

“Flying Post is thrilled for this to go forward,” he said.

Early community engagement and meaningful dialogue Cont`d on Pg. 74

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Joint Ventures

Flying Post First Nation Chief Murray Ray and Prime Minister Trudeau. Photo credit Adam Scotti

Excellent ways of developing local business capacity Cont`d from Pg. 72

between Aboriginal communities and exploration companies are key to establishing successful working relationships and partnerships. The agreements signed at the early exploration phase (e.g., Memoranda of Understanding, Exploration Agreements) serve to establish a mutual understanding between a community and a company and define the principles for working together for mutual opportunities.

For the last decade, Aboriginal-industry relationships and partnerships have evolved tremendously through the conclusion of agreements related to mine development, such as Impact and Benefit Agreements. These agreements typically contain provisions for employment and training, business opportunities through set-aside contracts and joint ventures, social and cultural considerations, environmental monitoring, funding arrangements, and other provisions.

The minerals and metals industries are among Canada’s largest employers in rural and northern regions, offering short- and long-term, as well as part-time and seasonal, employment opportunities. These industries provide some of the highest weekly earnings in the economy.

There are more than 120 different careers in mining, with entry-level, semi-skilled trades, and skilled jobs available throughout all stages of the mining sequence.

Each community is unique and will be equipped Page 74

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differently to capture potential economic opportunities.

Aboriginal communities may want to develop joint-venture businesses with established companies. Joint ventures are an excellent way to develop local business capacity to prepare for and take advantage of the business opportunities related to mine development.

It is vital that communities look beyond the life of the mine for economic growth and to diversify their economic activities. They could use the skills and capacity gained from participating in the mineral development cycle for new beginnings whether the future economic base is tourism, manufacturing, agriculture, or any other activity.

Photos (L-R): Jason Batise Executive Director of Wabun

Tribal Council, Matagami First Nation Chief Chad Boissoneau, Mark Selby Canada Nickel Company.

We make mining work

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The right company, the right time with the right solutions Construction sites and mining companies have a lot in common. Builders and mine operators know that when they need concrete – a lot has to go right. If a worksite runs into an unexpected event, big or small, that event can delay and even cancel the concrete altogether.

But what if there was a better approach? What if, instead of delivering concrete that had such a narrow pour window, you could simply deliver everything to site, and do it on demand?

By Kevin Vincent

Enter RufDiamond – a Coniston, Ontario based company that has manufactured a one-of-kind vehicle, the Agilis Mining and Tunneling Unit.

“We call it a mobile shotcrete/concrete batch plant,” said Daryl Adams, Co-Owner and Head of Sales. “There’s two ways of basically having shot-

Agilis Mobile Rough Terrain Tracked Unit crete or concrete in a mine. One is, you can have a ready-mix truck show up from a batch plant, and it may be half an hour or 45-minute old material. And we all know concrete, it’s about set time, as soon as you add water, it’s starting to set.”

dry material (it’s all dehydrated) and then add water at the nozzle. Dry shotcrete results in a greater amount of rebound and more dust particulate than the wet process.

Adams says RufDiamond’s system changes the game in underground shotcrete/concrete.

Pre-Blended totes from King (Sika) Shotcrete are loaded into our watertight hopper. At no time does water enter the dry hopper. When the process starts, material is conveyed into our patented mixing auger where a precise amount of water is then added per the mix design. The result is lab quality fresh shotcrete/concrete consistently, every time.

The Agilis has been three years in the making.

RufDiamond partnered with Bay-Lynx, which manufactures volumetric mixers. “We’ve made this unit mine-compliant. Our machine is completely enclosed, and there’s no water that can access the dry hopper, no penetration, because if you had a full open top, in mining, it would absorb the water, the moisture, and humidity, and the material would start hardening.”

“We can replace trans-mixers with the Agilis and never have to worry about lost loads due to non conformity or unforeseen circumstances (mechanical breakdowns etc.)” said Adams.

“Many times, mining company’s loads are lost due to non-conformance, because the material is either too wet or too dry.”

The Agilis solves a number of problems and it’s a global exclusive to RufDiamond. “Nobody’s doing this in the world. We just finished the first one in March. And that’s our surface unit. We had a request for a large mining company in February, which made some requests for a static batch plant, so we’re in discussions with them, providing them a solution.”

“And the other one is dry shotcrete. Dry is where they bring it down in totes, they put it through a pump, as

Every time the Agilis mixes material all data related to the mix design is recorded and available for

“Then it’s transferred into a trans-mixer and transported to its final worksite” he added.

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ARRIVAL OF THE FITTEST In addition to the Agilis, RufDiamond is the exclusive distributor of the Fat Truck in Ontario and Nunavut.

The all-terrain exploration utility vehicle is unlike other amphibious competitors. It’s built in Canada and has a hydrostatic drive.

Agilis Mobile Wheeled Mining Unit printout should a project manager require information such as time, date, work location, product used, water ratio and strength.

The Agilis carries 6 cubic metres of dry pre blended King (Sika) material, 1900 litres of water (that can be heated) and provides 30 cubic metres of shotcrete per hour.

There are three main challenges for companies in the exploration business when it comes to reliable utility vehicles: unreliable equipment like pickup trucks, old buses and recreational ATV’s are often used; equipment often gets stuck or breaks down in wet, frozen or rough terrain; and lastly, workers are often being transported to remote areas and managers have to resort to expensive solutions such as helicopters.

Our system provides precise mixes, reliable mixes, extremely low dust mixes and high production capability due to our units being able to mix on demand whether a client requires 1 metre or 1000 metres of shotcrete/concrete.

RufDiamond has three options available to mix shotcrete/concrete on site.

1. The wheeled mine carrier unit capable of filling shotcrete sprayers in location or pouring concrete where needed as needed.

2. The stationary (with easy portability) mine unit capable of filling trans-mixers as required.

3. The tracked surface unit capable of travelling to areas inaccessible (extreme off-road conditions) to ready-mix trucks.

Fat Truck amphibious utility vehicle The Fat Truck provides an innovative cost-effective, and reliable off-road vehicle. “It’s a robust utility vehicle that can operate for extended periods of time,” explains Adams. “It can safely transport multiple people along with sensitive equipment and instruments on land and through water or any inhospitable terrain.”

RufDiamond says the Fat Truck is perfect for inspections, transmission line work, emergency repairs, tailing pond inspections and environmental units.

Some companies that already use the Fat Truck include Kirkland Lake Gold, Agnico Eagle, BC Hydro, and Hydro-Quebec, HydroOne and others.

Stationary Underground or Surface Unit

The Fat Trucks include heaters, air conditioning, automatic safety brakes, seats with 3-point safety belts, cameras, a bilge pump, ROPS and telematics.

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Certarus

A More Effective Solution for Mine Heating

For decades, remote operations like mines have relied on expensive and emissions intensive fuel sources like propane or diesel to meet their power generation and mine air heating needs.

Now, Certarus is leading the transition to a low-cost, low carbon future by making natural gas available and affordable without the need for a physical pipeline.

Certarus has developed North America’s largest integrated low carbon energy delivery network utilizing proprietary technology and state-of-the-art carbon fibre trailers.

By compressing and delivering natural gas directly to off-pipe customers, Certarus offers new solutions to lower fuel costs and reduce carbon emissions.

Natural gas is sourced and compressed in close proximity to a customer’s operations to reduce potential supply and logistical risks and ensure a safe and secure flow of fuel is always onsite and ready for use. 24/7 remote monitoring through Certarus’ cloud-based network enables real-time flow and safety monitoring and automatic dispatching of new fuel delivery when required. The mobile fuel storage units can also be easily removed in the summer months when Page 84

no longer required.

Interested in switching from propane to natural gas for your heating needs?

The benefits of converting to natural gas include fuel cost savings and emissions reductions. Unlike propane, which has a dewpoint of -40C and starts to gel or freeze when demand is highest – natural gas provides premium performance until temperatures drop to -108C. Converting existing equipment is also quick and easy with Certarus on your side. Their engineering and operations teams can help assess conversion costs and calculate the return on investment.

Their team is ready to project manage the conversion, working directly with contractors familiar with your mine site and coordinating with equipment manufacturers to determine what needs to be replaced or adjusted.

With a modest upfront investment, customers often recap conversion costs within the first few months based on the fuel cost savings.

How long does it take to convert heating equipment to run on natural gas?

Most heaters were designed for natural gas and converted to accept propane. In many cases, the

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parts required to run natural gas are still stored in the appliance.

However, in some instances specific unit heaters or hot water heaters must be replaced.

Large mine air heaters typically require one day each to convert and recommission. Conversion of unit heaters and make up air units can take one to three hours, and multiple heaters can be converted in one day. With proper coordination, a site can be converted in the span of one to five days.

What else do I need to consider when thinking about converting?

While investigating the feasibility of switching to natural gas, it makes sense to aggregate the load and centralize the heating fuel drop points. Certarus’ third-party contractors can install additional gas lines between buildings.

To ensure uninterrupted operations, the best time to complete this work is outside of the heating season, when heat demand is low.

Interested in learning more?

The team at Certarus is ready to talk to you about your facility specifics and develop a customized plan to convert your operations.

Visit www.certarus.com to learn more and to contact the team to get started.

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Take Your Pulse

3 Ways

Vibrating Screen Diagnostics

Help Your Bottom Line

Haver & Boecker Niagara is a leading provider in screening, pelletizing and mineral processing plants and systems. The company’s mission is to deliver the best of these technologies to customers in the mining, minerals, aggregates, cement, recycling, building products, fertilizer and salt industries. With deep roots and years of experience in these industries, Haver & Boecker Niagara uses its innovative and shared technologies to effectively meet the needs of customers around the world.

By Peter Kilmurray, vice president of sales, Haver & Boecker Niagara’s North America and Australian operations

Mining and aggregates producer need reliable equipment.

Unplanned maintenance and inefficient equipment can reduce productivity and negatively affect profits. That’s why more and more turn to diagnostics to prevent issues with operational efficiency.

Diagnostics technology has reached the point where it is possible to monitor vibrating screen performance to unprecedented levels of detail — in real time. Innovative vibration analysis technology uses advanced diagnostics to help operations achieve maximum productivity.

Some systems have eight tri-axial sensors that fasten to key areas of a vibrating screen to detect and wirelessly transmit data to an industrial-grade tablet on-site. The instantaneous information can reveal irregularities that result in diminished performance, decreased Page 86

efficiency and possible safety risks.

The data can be transmitted to a vibrating screen manufacturer’s trained engineers to analyze and interpret it. They report the results to the producer, including recommendations to improve vibrating screen efficiency.

While everyone agrees efficiency is a good thing, consider these specific ways vibration analysis would benefit the bottom line.

1. Greater safety Experienced producers know a safe environment is a productive one. Vibration analysis provides the information needed to keep machines running properly and safely.

Thanks to the technology’s Wi-Fi capabilities, technicians can stand a safe distance from the machine, collecting and monitoring screen performance data out of harm’s way.

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2. Less downtime Vibration analysis can help detect abnormalities, that are impossible to spot visually, before they cause catastrophic failure. Even small irregularities can reduce screen performance or lead to expensive future breakdowns. Vibration analysis allows producers to manage performance problems before they occur through preventative maintenance.

3. Better productivity Vibration analysis helps operations achieve maximum productivity levels through real-time data analysis – information that producers can use to optimize screening performance and increase their production. The systems also store a vibrating screen’s historical data for easy comparison over time and insightful troubleshooting.

Diagnostic tools like vibration analysis can do wonders for improving and maintain vibrating screen performance and reducing maintenance costs and downtime. Look for a manufacturer able to provide a system along with the expertise needed to make recommendations to improve profits, productivity and your bottom line.

For more information: Email:info@haverniagara.ca www.haverniagara.com

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Commodity prices make “Investment Casting” an obvious choice for Mining and Exploration When it comes to the need for steel alloy components, be it low carbon, high carbon, harden able steel or stainless alloy steel, “Lost Wax” Investment casting has been in the periphery of the Mining and Exploration industry for quite some time.

This precision casting process is often an under- utilized option for the production of critical parts and components. The potential is for cost savings, consistency, and repeatability making near net shape parts. Given the influences of global events and the reality of commodity sourcing challenges, progressive companies are looking for ways to be more effective and efficient. There is no better time than today to explore Investment casting as a “best value” option to save money both in material, machining, and processing time.

The precision Investment casting process has existed for decades made current with today’s technologies and advancements in materials science. It may be a down hole tool or if you have ever held a rock drill in your hand you likely held an Investment casting, or should have! The value and advantages of the process are often overlooked while some machine shops, tool, and equipment builders embrace the advantage. As one buyer so succinctly said “I was tired of leaving half my investment on the tool room floor.”

With steel prices hitting an all time high in May 2021 can you afford to make turnings unnecessarily?

The process is ideally suited for those smaller castings from ounces up to 20 lbs but castings up to 70 lbs or more are poured on occasion. To see the Investment casting process videos are available on the web site www.precisecastings.ca. Areas where machining would be required are identified in advance with machining stock added to areas of critical dimension and tolerance. For “as cast” surfaces, linear tolerance capabilities are exceptional with +/- .010 for the first inch and an additional +/- .003-.005 for every additional inch.

Tooling, the “Lost wax” tooling virtually lasts forever being machined from billet aluminum with applicable shrinkage factors to ensure the final product meets Page 88

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the required dimensional outcome. Using 3D printing technology will allow for low volume casting and is excellent for prototyping parts for form, fit, and function.

Quality, ASTM specifications are commonly referred to for the chemistry make up and certification process.

Carbon steels including 1018, 1030, WCB, and low alloy steel such as 4140/8Q, 4340/10Q, 8620/13Q are cast weekly. Stainless steel alloys including Austenitic, Duplex and Precipitation hardening alloys are also common and frequent alloys cast at Precise Castings Inc. with a focus on supporting North American industry sectors specifically related to our natural resource sectors.

The product knowledge and diversity has allowed Precise Castings Inc. to demonstrate time and time again why they are the obvious choice for the Mining and Exploration industry says Kevin Melanson, Owner and President of Precise Castings Inc. “Our senior management team has over 100 years of industry knowledge and experience which we apply daily. Learning, growing, and embracing technology will keep us leading the pack for years to come.”

For more information about Precise Castings Inc., and the Investment casting process visit: www.precisecastings.ca

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NEO

Junior Review

By Frank Giorno

When it comes to mining, Ontario’s Northeastern region is one of Canada’s oldest, most prolific mining areas and according to the Ontario Geological Survey’s Resident Geologist Program Report for 2020, which summarizes mining and mining exploration projects, it will continue to be in the future.

For the Timmins District, the Ontario Geological Survey reported the number of claims in 2020 increased by 54.08% compared to 2019 and the number of active claims increased by 35.14%. The total area covered by claims in the Timmins District is 1,158, 607 hectares as of January 4, 2021, indicating that it is still one of the most active exploration destinations in Ontario.

Gold continues to be the primary objective of exploration in the Timmins district, but several base metal exploration projects also provide excellent potential for development.

GFG Resources Inc. – Pen Gold Property GFG Resources Inc. Pen Gold Property, located 40 km west of Timmins, realized 2 phases of diamond drilling in 2020. At the Sewell North prospect, hole PEN-20-054 returned 4.56 g/t gold over 0.7 m at 15.7 m downhole.

For the HGM prospect, holes PEN-20052 and PEN-20-053 were designed to test the up-dip western continuity of the system and the system’s western plunge.

High Gold Mining Inc. High Gold Mining conducted a 5,000 m diamond-drilling campaign at its properties Golden Perimeter, Golden Mile and Munro-Croesus east of Timmins. The company completed all its planned drill holes, 5 holes totaling 1553 m, on the Golden Perimeter property before halting the program because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The drilling at Golden Perimeter property encountered widespread mineralization over an 850 m long trend in a quartz-veined, variably altered and pyritic monzonite intrusion.

Significant intersections include 10.3 g/t gold and 42.8 g/t silver over 0.2 m, 2.3 g/t gold over 0.9 m, 0.5 g/t gold over 4.7 m, 4.04 g/t gold over 0.3 m and 4.82 g/t gold and 57.5 g/t silver over 0.3 m (High Gold Mining Inc., Management’s Discussion and Analysis, September 30, 2020).

Thank you to our customers, suppliers and partners for the trust you have placed in us over the past years!

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Kirkland Lake Gold – Zone 58N Project Last year, Kirkland Lake Gold completed a total of 3,693 m of diamond drilling in 12 holes targeting Zone 58N, near the Lower Detour Deformation Zone or LDDZ (KLG., Management’s Discussion and Analysis, Sept. 30, 2020). The

drilling intersected high-grade mineralization 175 m east of the current mineral resource, totalling 2.9 million tonnes grading 5.8 g/t gold in the indicated category and 1 million tonnes grading 4.35 g/t gold in the inferred category.

Melkior Resources Inc. – Carscallen Project Melkior Resources Inc. conducted a short 3-hole drilling program at its Carscallen Project, 25 miles west of Timmins, in the spring 2020. Melkior claims it may have found a new deposit. Highlights of the drilling program include at hole CAR-20-04: 4.2 g/t gold over 4 m from 334 to 338 m, including 15.8 g/t gold over 1 m from 337 to 338 m 0.103% copper over 18.5 m from 472.5 to 491 m; and 8.7% copper and 33.9 g/t silver over 0.5 m from 545 to 545.5 m. At Hole CAR20-05 25.7 g/t gold over 6 m from 357 to 363 m, including 205 g/t gold, 3.6% copper and 27.8 g/t silver over 0.7 m from 360.5 to 361.2 m. At Hole CAR20-06 intersected 5.6 g/t gold and 6.4 g/t silver over 9.5 m from 486.5 to 496 m, including 67.9 g/t gold, 79.8 g/t silver, 0.62% copper and 0.27% zinc over 0.5 m from 495 to 495.5 m Rockridge Resources Inc. – Raney Gold Project Rockridge Resources Inc. completed drilling 9 holes (2070 m) by March 2020. The Raney Gold Project is located 110 km west of Timmins. The focus was the main zone over a strike of 225 m that produced the best historic intercept of 6.5 g/t gold over 8 m.

The drilling tested the zone down to

the 260 m level. All the holes except one intersected mineralization varying from 0.39 to 27.98 g/t gold. Hole RN20-06 returned the best, 27.98 g/t gold over 6 m from 125 to 131 m, including 2.93 g/t Au over 1.0 m from 125.0 m to 126.0 m, 71.28 g/t Au over 2.3 m from 128.7 m to 131.0 m, and 326 g/t Au over 0.5 m from 130.5 m to 131.0 m. Five more holes were completed before October 20, 2020.

Sanatana Resources Inc. – Gold Rush Project Sanatana Resources Inc. acquired the Gold Rush Project in July 2020.

It is located 11 km northwest in Carscallen and Turnbull townships 11 km northwest of Timmins. In August 2020, six of nine samples taken from the Lalonde East shear reported over 1 g/t gold: two returned assays of 4.01 g/t gold and 5.06 g/t gold. In October 2020, assayed samples contained up to 27.3 g/t gold and 5.0 g/t gold was collected at Lalonde East, North Vein, North Shaft, DeSantis and DC prospects. Silver mineralization was found with a ratio of 5:1. The highest silver occurred at the North Shaft prospect, at 100 g/t silver. About 25% of the 106 samples collected returned assays above 1 g/t silver. The best assay results from the prospects were 59.2 g/t gold from DeSantis, 27.3 g/t gold from North Shaft, 11.2 g/t gold from North Vein, 8.41 g/t gold from DC, 6.45 g/t gold from DeSantis S, 5.06 g/t gold from Staten and 3.54 g/t gold at Leduc

Among the exploration sites in the Timmins area are three notable base metal properties Canada Nickel Company Inc. – Crawford Property Canada Nickel Company Inc., a spinoff of Noble Minerals Exploration Inc., was extremely active on the Crawford property in 2020. The exploration diamond-drilling campaign extended the resources in the Main Zone and the new East Zone. It defined a platinum group metal (PGM) zone, which trended parallel to the nickel struc-

NEO

tures in the Main and East Zones, at the contact between the peridotite and pyroxenite layer north of the nickel structure. It identified nickel mineralization in the West and North Zones

Noble Mineral Exploration Inc. and Partner JV – Carnegie Property Noble Mineral Exploration drilled 10 holes totaling 2,889.45 m on the Carnegie property. The holes were drilled to test conductive trends identified from a 2017 airborne electromagnetic and magnetic survey and a gravity survey flown in 2018. Four holes intersected anomalous zinc and copper mineralization. Results include 0.64% zinc over 12 m from 219 to 231 m, including 1.38% zinc over 3 m from 223 to 226 m (hole CG19-01); 0.72% zinc and up to 0.25 copper over 2.75 m from 282.6 to 285.35 m (hole CG1909). Hole CG19-03 intersected up to 20 m of massive to semi-massive sulphide containing anomalous lowgrade zinc.

North American Nickel Inc. – Loveland Nickel Property North American Nickel Inc. completed a four-hole diamond-drilling program with borehole geophysics on the Loveland Nickel property to test a series of conductors identified by a VTEM (versatile time- domain electromagnetic helicopter borne) Max survey in 2017. Hole LN25-20-002 intersected gabbroic rocks of the Enid Creek Gabbroic Complex and narrow mineralized intervals with up to 0.18% copper, 0.13% nickel, and 0.23 g/t palladium over 0.7 m. A following borehole electromagnetic (EM) survey indicated the center of conductivity was located up-dip towards the known mineralization.

Niobium discovery of interest, James Bay Coast NioBay Metals Inc. – James Bay Niobium Project In March 2020, Niobay Metals Inc. announced the completion of its 2019– 2020 winter drilling program at its

Junior Review

James Bay Niobium Project. The program consisted of seven holes totaling 3,090 m. The assay results from the first 3 holes showed high-grade intersections. NioBay published a new NI 43-101-compliant report in August of 2020 indicating a resource estimate of 29.7 Mt at 0.53% Nb2O5 in the indicated category and 33.8 Mt at 0.52% Nb2O5 in the inferred category. A positive Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) was filed October 13, 2020. A 12,000 m infill drilling program was started in January 2021.

Kirkland Lake District Advanced and Ongoing Exploration Projects The Kirkland Lake mining district continues to be a lucrative zone for gold, silver, cobalt exploration.

There are 4 advanced projects and 15 exploration projects underway in the district.

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. – Upper Beaver And Upper Canada Deposits During the year 2020, Agnico Eagle focussed on both deposits, which are located approximately 5 km from each other in Gauthier Township. Mineral reserve and resources at Upper Beaver underground depths have been estimated as follows.

• Probable Mineral Reserve of 8.0 Mt containing 1.4 million ounces of gold and 19 980 t of copper, grading 5.43 g/t Au and 0.25% Cu. • Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources of 3.6 Mt, containing 0.4 million ounces of gold and 5135 t of copper, grading 3.45 g/t Au and 0.14% Cu. • Inferred Mineral Resources of 8.7 Mt containing 1.4 million ounces of gold and 17 300 t of copper, grading 5.07 g/t Au and 0.20% Cu. At the Upper Canada deposit, there are Indicated Mineral Resources of 9.7 Mt grading 2.23 g/t Au (containing 693 000 ounces of gold) and Inferred Mineral Resources of 17.1 Mt grading Page 91

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3.22 g/t Au (containing 1.8 million ounces of gold) at underground and open pit depths).

Canada Silver Cobalt Works Inc. – Castle Silver Property The Castle Mine is 85 km northwest the Cobalt silver mining camp. The mine operated at various times between 1917 and 1989. Canada Cobalt Works Inc. had a name change to Canada Silver Cobalt Works Inc. as of May 14, 2020. A total of 50 000 m of diamond drilling was planned for 2020 and 2021. In 2020, the company focussed on the Castle East Robinson zone where it had made a major discovery of high-grade silver, including massive native silver in drill core.

A maiden NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate for the Robinson zone was released during the second quarter.

O3 Mining Inc. – Garrison Project The Garrison project is located along the Porcupine–Destor deformation zone, approximately 40 km north of the town of Kirkland Lake. It contains the Garrcon, Jonpol and 903 deposits. O3 Mining announced positive results from an independent PEA on its 100% owned Garrison project.

ARIS Gold Corp. (Formerly Caldas Gold Corp.) – JUBY PROJECT The Juby project is located in the Shining Tree area 92 km southwest of the town of Kirkland Lake. Gold was first discovered in the Shining Tree area in the 1930s. The Juby project currently comprises the Juby Main zone, Golden Lake zone, Hydro Creek–LaCarte zone and Big Dome zone deposits.

Atacama Resources International, Inc. – Atacama 3 Property The Atacama 3 property is 4 km directly south of the new #4 shaft of Kirkland Lake Gold. The company released geophysical data and sampling results from the property. A total of 18 km of cut lines, induced polarPage 92

ization (IP), magnetic and VLF-EM surveys were carried out over the fall and winter of 2019. The survey identified 3 main IP chargeability horizons comprising iron formation and graphitic sediment interflow units, with zinc mineralization within the upper graphitic horizon. Follow-up channel sampling showed zinc values greater than 1% Zn with a high of 4.04% Zn over 1 m.

Brixton Metals Corp. – Langis Project Brixton’s wholly owned Langis Mine project is located 70 km southeast of Kirkland Lake. Prior diamond drilling in 2018 and early 2020 returned highgrade native silver over considerable widths near the historical shaft #3.

The drilling had the following results.

• 3140 g/t Ag, 10.15% Co, 0.58% Ni from channel sampling • 6160 g/t Ag and 16.95% Co, >1% Ni from grab samples of the native silver veins Results from Brixton’s 2020 drilling results support the existence of new, shallow, high-grade silver-cobalt mineralization around the shaft #3.

Fuse Cobalt Inc. – Teledyne Property Fuse Cobalt Inc. Teledyne property is in Bucke and Lorrain townships. During the third quarter of 2020, Fuse announced that it had completed an Internal Conceptual Study for the de-watering and reclamation of the Teledyne ramp on the property where a high degree of cobalt mineralized material is thought to exist. The study consists of 3 phases • environmental baseline study and permitting • surface infrastructure construction • ramp dewatering/rehabilitation and bulk sampling Gatling Exploration Inc. – Larder Project The Larder project is located 35 km east of Kirkland Lake and 4 km northeast of Larder Lake. The project

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is 100% controlled by Gatling and comprises patented and unpatented claims, leases and mining licences of occupation. It is located 7 km west of the historical Kerr Addison Mine, which produced 11 million ounces of gold. The 3 gold deposits are the Bear, Cheminis and Fernland).

Throughout 2020, Gatling was engaged in aggressive diamond-drilling activities at the Larder project leading to the discovery of high-grade, nearsurface mineralization and continuity between deposits. iMETAL Resources Inc. – Gowganda West Project iMetal Resources Gowganda West project is located 17 km west-southwest of Gowganda and 90 km southwest Kirkland Lake. It covers the projected eastward extension of the structural trend that hosts the Juby deposit. In 2020, sampling and diamond drilling at the Gowganda West project focussed on zone 1 and zone 3. At zone 1, grab sample values included: 5.13 g/t Au, with 5 of the 7 samples in the northern extension returning values in excess of 1 g/t Au from a strongly ankerite-altered, brecciated unit. A new key area of interest on the Gowganda West project is the MacCallum stripping, which returned 18.71 g/t Au from a grab sample.

Lasalle Exploration Corp. – Blakelock Gold Property The 3700 ha Blakelock property covers 15 km of the Casa Berardi deformation zone, 55 km west of the multi-million-ounce, high-grade Casa Berardi gold mine operated by Hecla Mining Company. LaSalle acquired the property from Pan American Silver subject to a C$400,000 exploration expenditure by LaSalle and a retained 2% net smelter returns royalty (LaSalle Exploration Corp., news release, March 10, 2020). During the fourth quarter, LaSalle initiated a 5-hole diamond-drill program to confirm and expand historic intersections in the Porphyry Creek zone. Two drill

NEO holes were completed by the end of the year. An induced polarization geophysical survey was planned to begin in January 2021 to locate possible additional gold targets.

Junior Review

ended in the spring of 2020 include: DDH JS2004 with 314 g/t Au over 1.74 m (uncut), including a highergrade section that assayed 1810 g/t Au over 0.3 m; DDH JS2005 with 2.5 g/t Au over 26 m, including 9.39 g/t Au over 3 m.

Phase 2 drill program successfully intercepted gold in both higher-grade narrow vein intersections and a series of new gold-bearing intercepts.

tained by the vendor. The north trending Pacaud deformation zone is approximately 400 m wide and 2.5 km long on the property. The company is planning on follow-up diamond drilling, consisting of at least 10 deeper holes of between 250 m and up to 750 m in core length, with downhole geophysics being conducted from each hole prior to drilling the next hole in succession.

Orefinders Resources Inc. – Knight Project The Knight project is one of Orefinders’ flagship assets, located adjacent to and contiguous with Aris Gold’s 2.3 million-ounce Juby project. In 2020, Orefinders planned 9000 m of diamond drilling on the Tyranite Mine and Porphyry Lake targets. By early November 2020, 2 drill holes had been completed and a third was in progress at the former target. Significant drill intercepts from the first completed drill hole on the Tyranite Mine target included hole DDH TYR20-001 with 4.18 g/t Au over 14.28 m, and 2.03 g/t Au over 9.0 m.

RJK Explorations Ltd. – Bishop Nipissing Diamond Project In 2019, RJK Explorations Ltd. entered into a property option agreement with Bishop Nipissing diamond properties. A total of 4 kimberlite bodies were discovered through diamond drilling in 2020. The company reported that the fourth kimberlite (HSM conductance anomaly) is approximately 1400 m long by 350 m wide and is located 1 km southeast of the Robin’s Place kimberlite.

At the end of 2020, RJK announced results from 3 sample batches, totalling 165 kg, recovered from 4 drill holes on Paradis Pond. From the heavy mineral concentrates, 283 grains were probed and classified into 6 diamond indicator minerals: olivine/ forsterite, chromite and high titanium chromite, clinopyroxene, perodititic pyroxene, eclogitic garnet and perodititic garnet. A total of 5 microdiamonds were recovered and all stones were described as natural, white, chip with adamantine lustre, strong colour emission with no inclusions. One diamond from drill holes PP-20-03/04 was described as an irregular crystal with fractured surface, weakly yellow with adamantine lustre, strong colour emission with no inclusions.

Sparton Resources Inc. – Matachewan Gold Property The Matachewan gold property consists of 41 mining claims and 3 mining leases in the Matachewan area. During the fourth quarter of 2020, Sparton Resources Inc. announced the commencement of an initial 2000 m diamond-drilling program consisting of 10 holes on the Sir Harry Oakes project, which is in close proximity to Alamos Gold’s producing Young–Davidson Mine. Drilling was designed to occur from 5 locations in order to establish approximately 300 m of strike length of the zones reported from the 1930s historical data .

Pelangio Exploration Inc. – Grenfell Project The Grenfell project is located 10 km northwest of Kirkland Lake. Pelangio completed 2 phases of diamond drilling on the project during 2020. Highlights of the Phase 1 drill program that

RT Minerals Corp. – Link–Catharine Property The Link–Catharine property is located 25 km south-southeast of Kirkland Lake. RT Minerals Corp. has the option to earn a 100% interest in the property subject to a 2% NSR re-

Mistango River Resources – EBY–Baldwin Project The Baldwin zone is adjacent to Kirkland Lake Gold’s Macassa Mine and includes land holdings in western Teck Township, as well as in Grenfell and Eby townships. The zone shares a similar geological context with the Kirkland Lake mining camp in that it hosts likely extensions of the gold-bearing Main Break fault and subsidiary structures, as well as the regionally important Larder–Cadillac deformation zone. Mistango commenced field work on June 1, 2020.

The work included compilation of historical data, extensive mapping and collection of approximately 240 grab samples, reprocessing of an aeromagnetic data set and structural interpretation to establish drill targets.

Warrior Gold Inc. – Goodfish–Kirana Property Warrior Gold’s 100% owned Goodfish–Kirana property is situated 5 km north of the Larder–Cadillac deformation zone in Kirkland Lake.

In January of 2020, Warrior Gold announced the discovery of a new highgrade gold interval, south of the A zone where a Phase 2 diamond drilling was completed at the end of follow-up diamond drilling, totalling 2448 m and consisting of 7 drill holes, was completed on the A zone in the third quarter, to test the down dip and strike extension to the east and west. Two additional drill holes, totalling 447 m, were completed on the C zone in an effort to better determine the orientation of the known mineralization and associated structures.

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The Sudbury Basin is known as one of the world’s most prolific mining camps for nickel and base metals. But on underexplored ground in the outlying areas many explorationstage junior miners continue to actively drill and sample for gold and metals related to the electric vehicle battery revolution.

Advanced Projects KGHM International Limited - Victoria Project The Victoria property, situated at the junction of the Sudbury Igneous Complex (SIC) and the Worthington Offset dike, is located in the South Range of the Sudbury Structure in Denison Township. The Victoria property has a long history of exploration and mining. In 2020, KGHM focused on exploratory work to increase knowledge of the deposit. Cash expenditures on the Victoria project for the 2020 were US $7 million.

NEW AGE METALS INC. River Valley Platinum Group Metals (PGM) Project The River Valley PGM are located 60 km east of Sudbury. The deposit has been traced for 16 km along strike, containing 12 mineralized zones separated by faults with offsets of up to 1 km. In 2020, New Age Metals’ River Valley exploration program drilled the Pine Zone. In Phase 1, 8 holes (1685 m) were drilled. Phase 2 consisted of 3 drill holes (792 m) testing the Pine and T3 zones. New Age Metals prospected and sampled in the Dana South and Pardo zones to confirm the presence of the mineralized River Valley breccia unit. 300 core samples from prioritized zones were submitted for rhodium, palladium, platinum, ruthenium and iridium analyses. The results are expected in 2021.

Northern Graphite Corporation Bissett Creek Project Northern Graphite Corporation holds 100% interest in the Bissett Creek graphitic gneiss deposit near Mattawa. Proposed development of the deposit will occur in 2 phases. Phase 1 will consist of an open pit mine and Page 94

a processing plant with conventional crushing, grinding and flotation circuits followed by concentrate drying and screening. After 3 years production, phase 2 will involve doubling the production. Extra-large flake and battery grade graphite concentrates will account for 90% of the production. A Feasibility Study of the Bissett Creek project was completed in 2012 and updated in 2013. A Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) was completed in 2013 and updated in 2014.

In 2020, Northern Graphite completed metallurgical testing. Results indicate that the average concentrate purity would increase from 94.5% to 97.2% with the new flow sheet. Small declines in recoveries (from 94.7% to 92.4%) and in large flake yields would be expected.

Exploration Projects Glencore Norman West Project Discovered in 1996, the project has been actively explored since 2014.

The deposit is located in Norman Township, 35–40 km northeast of Sudbury. The Norman West Cu-NiPGE deposit is hosted over a 2 km strike length within a series of contact and footwall lenses that begin at 1600 m below surface and plunge down to 2800 m.

Vale Canada Limited Sudbury Basin Vale Canada Ltd. continues to explore its extensive Sudbury Basin properties, under study is the Kelly Lake property, which makes up phase 2 of the Copper Cliff Deep project and would be accessed by expansion of that mine. A feasibility study to determine the viability of phase 2 has been commenced. Vale Canada Ltd. and

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Glencore Canada Corporation continue working together on Vale’s Victor property.

Canadian Palladium Resources East Bull Palladium Project The project is located 97 km west Sudbury. An updated NI 43-101 technical report and initial mineral resource estimate was submitted to SEDAR in 2019. In 2020, Canadian Palladium Resources completed and reported assay results from 42 diamond-drill holes. Assay results grading better than 1 g/t total precious metals. A magneto telluric survey was undertaken over the project and identified new drill targets.

Conquest Resources Ltd. Golden Rose Gold Project Located 65 km northeast of Sudbury.

In 2020, Conquest Resources initiated a 5000 m drill program. Results from the first 2 drill holes were reported in January 2021. In addition to the Golden Rose property, Conquest Resources also holds options on claim cells in MacBeth. In 2020, Conquest increased its land holdings with the acquisition of Canadian Continental Exploration Corp. and with claim cells in Belfast Township, obtained by staking and purchase. These acquisitions give Conquest Resources a land package greater than 220 km 2 (22 000 ha) in the Temagami mining camp, including Canadian Continental Exploration Corp’s Deepwater and Eaglerock Lake projects.

Graycliff Exploration Ltd. Shakespeare Gold Property The property is located 88 km west of Sudbury and hosts the past-producing Shakespeare gold mine which was in production between 1905 and 1948.

In 2020, Graycliff undertook compi-

NEO lation and analysis of historical data, and field verifications, which lead to the identification of a prospective gold horizon. A 2000 m drill program was initiated targeting the area around the past-producing Shakespeare gold mine shaft and over 6 km along the strike of the prospective gold horizon.

Grid Metals Corp. East Bull Lake Palladium Project Grid Metals Corp. has a large property position over the East Bull Lake intrusion 80 km west of Sudbury. In 2020 Grid Metals completed magneto telluric (MT) surveys over 2 target areas and along 2 survey lines. Grid Metals conducted a drill program, and a 4-week field program in 2020. There were 75 grab samples, taken from the Parisien Lake (West Lobe) and Southwest margin (East Lobe). Nine samples returned values above 1g/t TPM. The drill program consisted of 15 drill holes; assays are still pending for the final 2 holes of the program.

Inventus Mining Corp. Pardo Paleoplacer and Sudbury 2.0 Properties The Pardo property, 65 km northeast of Sudbury and has numerous gold occurrences on the property. A 1000 tonne bulk sample was taken in 2017 from the Trench 1 area. A return of 3.72 kg (119.5 troy ounces) of gold was recovered, and the tailings were estimated to contain 0.44 kg (14.2 troy ounces) of gold. This gives a recovery rate of 89%, a total gold content of 4.16 kg (133.8 troy ounces) and an equivalent head grade of 4.20 g/t gold.

Inventus Mining’s Sudbury 2.0 Project is located 45 km northeast of Sudbury and is located in the Temagami Magnetic Anomaly. Additionally in 2020, Inventus acquired the Wolf Lake and Cobalt Hill properties, as well as the Rathbun Lake property from Flag Resources.

Joshua Gold Resources Inc. King Solomon’s Mine Gold Property The property is located in Davis Township 72 km northeast of Sudbury. The area is underlain by the Huronian Supergroup and Nipissing mafic intrusions. The mineralization occurs as auriferous quartz-carbonate and breccia veins.

Macdonald Mines Exploration Ltd. Scadding–Powerline–Jovan (SPJ) iron-oxide-copper-gold project is located 40 km northeast of Sudbury. In 2020, MacDonald Mines continued the drill program that started in the summer of 2019.The program targeted verification and expansion of the high-grade gold mineralization at the Scadding deposit. The company also completed 5 ground Induced Polarization (IP) geophysical surveys: 1 in the Scadding deposit area, 3 in the Jovan area and 1 in the Powerline area.

Magna Mining Corp. Shakespeare Nickel Property In 2017, Magna Mining Corp. acquired The Shakespeare nickel mine property which is located 70 km westsouthwest of Sudbury. The Shakespeare intrusion is a differentiated sill interpreted to be part of the Nipissing intrusive suite (Shakespeare age: ca.

2217 Ma; Davey et al. 2019). It has 2 magmatic packages: the lower package being unmineralized pyroxenite and gabbro; and the upper package being mineralized melagabbro, quartz gabbro and biotite quartz gabbro. In 2019, Magna submitted an updated mineral resources estimate Magna Mining’s exploration program included surface sampling, trenching and channel sampling.

North American Nickel Inc. Post Creek and Halcyon North American Nickel Inc.’s Post Creek and Halcyon projects are lo-

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cated 35 km northeast of Sudbury.

In 2020, North American Nickel undertook sampling and data compilation on the Post Creek property The compilation identified copper-gold mineralization in the Sudbury Breccia zone along the north-northeast–trending strike of the Whistle Offset quart diorite.

SPC Nickel Corp.

Aer–Kidd Project Jane PGM-Cu-Ni Property Sudbury Platinum Corporation now known as SPC Nickel Corp has two exploration projects – Aer-Kidd Project and the Jane PGM Copper Nickel Property. The Aer–Kidd property is located on the Worthington offset dike near the historical Howland Pit, and Robinson and Rosen mines. SPC Nickel Corp. reported a historical resource of 786 000 t at 0.57% Ni and 0.76% Cu for Aer–Kidd in 2020, SPC Nickel Corp. reported results from its fall 2019 drill program in the Rosen Mine area. Eight drill holes (4670 m) were completed. In 2020, SPC Nickel Corp. entered into an option agreement to acquire the Janes property 50 km northeast of Sudbury.

Transition Metals Corp. In 2020, Transition Metals Corp. added the Aylmer, Espanola and Sawmill projects to their Sudbury District properties portfolio. Transition Metals also holds the Doherty Lake and Fostung properties. In 2020, Transition Metals undertook surface sampling and mapping on their Aylmer, Espanola and Sawmill properties, as well as a deep penetrating airborne magneto telluric (MT) survey over a 35 km 2 area of the Aylmer property. Transition Metals Corp. entered into an Option and Joint Venture agreement with 1930153 ON Ltd. for the Fostung Tungsten Property 70 km southwest of Sudbury and comprises 50 mining claims. A mineral resource estimate was reported on the property in 2007.

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