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FUTURE OUTLOOK
A 2,000 m drilling program has been launched to follow up on a highly successful prospecting and trenching program on Maisie Zone gold discovery at Menneval. The drilling program is designed to test the Maisie zone with approximately 50 short holes across the 700 m strike length of the zone. The initial 7 holes were drilled beneath 2 bonanza grade sections of the vein identified from trenching. Assays are pending on the initial holes and the program continues to test the vein at depths up to 30 m.
SLAM has begun base line water sampling as the first step in the permitting process for a potential open pit mining operation at Nepisiguit. It plans to utilize the $100,000 grant from the Province of New Brunswick to fund a drilling program to upgrade and expand the Nepisiguit deposit. The program will follow the recommendations from the NI 43-101 Technical Report. The deposit contains a significant near-surface VMS deposit amenable to open pit mining methods located in close proximity to the world-class BMS No.12 zinc-lead-silver mine.
Nepisiguit and Nash Creek projects together comprise a potential base metal inventory wholly owned by SLAM that could supply ore to local milling operations at a future date. This could possibly generate substantial revenues for SLAM. In addition, Nepisiguit remains open to expand with excellent potential for a much larger deposit.
The Reserve Creek property has sufficient assessment credits to hold for several years. The Company is looking for a potential partner to explore and develop this significant gold deposit. Other companies as well as the Province of Ontario are proposing to develop infrastructure in this area to access the resources of the “Ring of Fire”. The viability of the Reserve Creek gold deposit would be much enhanced by such infrastructure.
The Opikeigen gold property hosts several gold occurrences including Zone OL12, Zone OL41 and the Fort Hope gold mine. SLAM and joint venture partner Beatrix Ventures Ltd. have sufficient credits to maintain this gold property until market conditions improve or a partner is found to finance a drilling program.
The Miminiska Gold Property is under option to Namex Exploration Inc. and the Keezhik Gold Property is under option to Zephyr Minerals Inc. These companies are obliged to maintain these properties by completing required exploration expenditures as well as specified share and cash payments.
SLAM has sufficient funds to complete the current drilling program on the Maisie gold deposit at Menneval as well as a follow-up program if warranted. The objective is to generate a near surface resource amenable to potential open pit mining methods. Many successful long term gold producers have started out with a cost-effective “glory-hole” type mining operation. This would provide SLAM with potential cash flow to fund operations and develop additional resources to sustain longer-term developments. In the meantime, to advance further will require access to additional funding. This may be accomplished through issuance of equity or by forming partnerships with other firms. SLAM continues to seek partnerships to advance its attractive portfolio of properties.