Eastmain kicks off winter drilling for high-grade shallow gold targets in James Bay

One of North America’s newest gold districts is the James Bay region in Québec Canada. It is host to five known deposits and is currently the focus of extensive staking and exploration.

Eastmain Resources Inc.’s (TSX: ER | OTCQX: EANRF) district scale land package in the James Bay gold camp totals 109,000 hectares. The company holds a 100% interest in two high-grade gold properties – The Clearwater Property (including the Eau Claire deposit) and the Eastmain Mine Project. In addition, Eastmain holds a 36.7% interest in Éléonore South, a mineral exploration joint venture.

Eastmain’s main projects.

The Eau Claire Project (100% owned) covers 20,068 hectares, is readily accessible by road and is located approximately 800 km north of Montreal. To date the inferred resource is at 500,000 contained ounces of gold grading 6.53g/t Au. The May 2018 PFS resulted in after-tax NPV5% of CAD$260 million, cash cost of only US$486/oz, CapeX of CAD$175 m, with a 12 year mine life. Certainly a very solid start with upside potential.

The Eastmain Mine Project comprises 8,014 hectares located in the Upper Eastmain River Green Stone Belt of James Bay. With a partially developed historic high grade gold-copper deposit the project provides very attractive exploration and discovery opportunities for the Company. The Mine project, which hosts the Eastmain gold deposit, a copper-gold-silver, sulfide-rich deposit, contains 236,500 ounces of gold grading 8.19 g/t in Indicated category, plus 139,300 ounces of gold grading 7.48 g/t in the Inferred category.

Éléonore South JV, an exploration-stage project, jointly held by Eastmain (36.72%), and Azimut Exploration Inc. (26.57%), and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldcorp (36.71%), the property consists of 282 mining claims covering 147 square km of prospective land.

The Percival Discovery at The Eau Claire Project (on the Clearwater property)

The Company announced the Percival discovery last November located 14 km from their Eau Claire gold deposit. Two initial holes were drilled recognizing gold mineralization from surface to 90 m vertical depth demonstrating an interpreted true thickness of 50 m. Then on January 15, 2019 the company reported results for the final three drill holes completed in late 2018 at their Percival discovery and the Serendipity Prospect. A total of 3,599 m of drilling was completed at both Percival and the Serendipity Prospect during the fall 2018 program. Drilling confirmed thick and shallow gold, silver, and zinc mineralization to a vertical depth of 50 m, with highlights including:

ER 18-819: 0.59 g/t Au over 33.1 m including 1.0 g/t Au over 12.0 m ER 18-820: 0.68 g/t Au over 33.0 m including 1.75 g/t Au over 8.8 m ER 18-821: 4.26 g/t Au over 1.5 m including 11.8 g/t Au over 0.5 m

Claude Lemasson, Eastmain President and CEO commented: “We are excited with the results from the shallow gold targets at both Percival and Serendipity. Our exploration team is eager and ready to test the district potential of the under explored 21,000 ha Clearwater Property. At the Percival discovery, we are beginning to better understand the stratigraphic and structural controls of the new discovery, giving us greater clarity and focus for continued exploration.”

Catalysts ahead

The three month winter 2019 exploration program (20-holes for 5,500 m) will focus on testing the extent and continuity of Percival beyond the 200 m strike and 250 dip extent tested in 2018.

A Company summary for investors

Since taking over as CEO in April 2016, Mr. Claude Lemasso, a bilingual Professional Engineer with 30 years experience, has a built a new management team from scratch making significant progress on key projects. He believes Eastmain is a solid company with great potential.

For now Eastmain is making all the right moves at their James Bay properties. Eau Claire is leading the charge towards production with a solid resource (500 Oz inferred) and grade, low cash cost, good PFS, and exploration upside. The Eastmain Mine Project is also advancing very well with 236,500Oz Au at 8.19 g/t indicated. Ideally Eastmain can get to their goal of 3 million ounces in 3 years and become a growing gold producer. At the current CAD$35 million market cap the stock looks well valued.