Toronto — Fortune may again be smiling on Flin Flon, Manitoba.
Just months after Canada's biggest legal grow op shut down over a dispute, HudBay Minerals Inc. [HBM-T] said Tuesday it has found evidence of a major new copper-gold zone near its Snow Lake concentrator in the Flin Flon area of northern Manitoba.
For nine years, Prairie Plant Systems, the company contracted by the Canadian government to grow medicinal marijuana for licensed users, occupied a mine in the hardscrabble mining town 870 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.
The mine, owned by HudBay and previously used by the company as a zinc mine, offered secure, environmentally isolated conditions where Prairie Plant Systems grew hydroponic pot for Health Canada until July. That's when an ongoing row between HudBay and its tenant came to a head and HudBay chose not to renew the pharmaceutical company's lease. Prairie Plant Systems has since moved its operations to another, undisclosed location.
While the little town on the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border can no longer claim to be “The marijuana capital of Canada,” as local t-shirts once boasted, HudBay said its latest find “may be very significant.”
The Toronto-based mining company's announcement was based on initial results from recent drilling at the Lalor deposit, an area containing gold and zinc where HudBay is focusing its efforts.
The new Copper-Gold mineralization zone was discovered recently and is lower than the three previously announced Base Metal, Separate and Contact Gold zones.
HudBay chief executive Peter Jones said in a statement that the copper and gold contained in one of the drill holes is “among the best I have seen in nearly 40 years in the mining business and the new Copper-Gold zone may be very significant.”
The hole, called DUB263W02, assayed at 13.35 grams per tonne of gold, 27.98 grams per tonne of silver, 5.33 per cent copper and 0.35 per cent zinc over 34.54 metres at a depth of from 1,253.08 to 1,287.62 metres.
“Excluding the new Copper-Gold zone, HudBay's target is to reach three million contained ounces of gold. The Lalor project is our focus and we will continue to advance it to a production decision with the highest priority,” Jones said.
HudBay said Tuesday it expects to provide a more detailed resource estimate of the zinc contained at the Base Metal zone on the Lalor deposit by early October as well as more preliminary estimates of the gold contained at the Separate and Contact Gold zones.
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