Mining

Matador Mining launches gold resource expansion drilling program in Newfoundland

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By Robin Bromby - 
Matador Mining ASX MZZ drilling Cape Ray Project gold Canada

The 12,000m Cape Ray drilling campaign will aim to increase the current gold resource and identify priority greenfield prospects.

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Matador Mining (ASX: MZZ) is about to begin a 12,000m drilling campaign at its flagship Cape Ray gold project located in Canada’s emerging Newfoundland mining district.

The drilling is aimed at both increasing the current resource and at identifying priority greenfield prospects.

Road clearances and camp maintenance is near completion.

Meanwhile, Matador said its greenfield exploration program will continue over two years. It will simultaneously target and test new areas to generate a pipeline of future drill targets and deposits.

That work will include airborne geophysics, structural mapping, geochemical sampling and trenching.

Of the brownfields targets, Window Glass Hill is a priority with 3,000m of extension drilling to be done. The drilling program last November found gold at a drilled cost of US$5 per ounce.

Another 2,000m of drilling is planned at the Isle aux Morts; this deposit has seen minimal exploration over the past 30 years.

Based on present cash reserves, Matador is fully funded for the 2020 and 2021 exploration seasons.

Now looking at a 10-year mining operation The Cape Ray gold project lies within the underexplored Cape Ray Shear zone gold belt, which transects the mining-friendly island of Newfoundland with significant gold occurrences across the entire length of strike.

Referred to as Canada’s “forgotten mining province”, the region was targeted by Matador for its reputation as a heavily-endowed virgin gold province — and one with very limited large-scale exploration conducted since a discovery there in 1977 by Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO).

Matador’s new exploration strategy is aimed at expanding the resource base to a size that will support a 10-year operation; the scoping study was based on the assumption of a seven-year mine life.

The greenfield targets are The Granites, a granitic intrusion on the Cape Ray Shear, 2km west of Window Glass Hill; Big Pond Sleeper, an underexplored area adjacent to The Granites; and Grandy’s Lake-Benton.

Matador executive chairman Ian Murray said the company’s corporate strategy is straightforward: to have a resource large enough to support a 10-year operation.

“While the brownfield program has the highest probability of adding to the resource base in the near term, the greenfield potential along the company’s 120km landholding on the highly prospective Cape Ray Shear is the most exciting moving forward,” he said.

Most of the greenfield zones have seen very limited drilling.