Epic outlines initial 440,000-oz McKinnon resource in Ontario

The first compliant resource for Epic Gold’s (CSE: EPG; US-OTC: NFLDF) brownfield McKinnon deposit in Ontario – part of the larger Hawkins project – outlines 440,000 oz. that mostly sit in a conceptual open pit shell.

The resource gives McKinnon 14 million inferred tonnes grading 0.98 gram gold per tonne, with about 82% of the ounces in an open-pit scenario and the rest underground, Epic reported Thursday. The road-accessible Hawkins is about 80 km southwest of Hearst and 720 km northwest of Toronto.

“What stands out to us is how little of the broader system has been tested,” Epic CEO Rod Husband said in a release. McKinnon accounts for about 3.7 km of a significantly longer mineralized structure, and most of the resource sits within 200 metres of surface, he added.

Puskuta zone opportunities

Epic’s near-term work “will focus on systematically exploring the broader Puskuta Deformation Zone to better understand the full lateral extent of the gold mineralization, followed by depth-extension and infill drilling to assess whether confidence in the current mineral resource can be improved,” Husband said.

The estimate gives Epic a current resource base to test the broader Puskuta zone, an underexplored structure that the company interprets as connecting the prolific Timmins and Hemlo gold districts. But at 440,400 inferred oz., Hawkins remains an early-stage project that uses a US$3,500-per-oz gold price and is supported by metallurgical testing completed in 1985.

Past producer

The main mineralization zone at McKinnon hosts several higher-grade historical zones, which supported the Shenango gold mine’s intermittent operations from 1935 to 1945. The wider site has also been explored since the 1920s, with Falconbridge doing the most intensive work from 1983 to 1986. That work, as well as data from holes drilled by Sunvest Minerals – now Sky Gold (TSXV: SKYG) – and E2Gold over the last decade has been incorporated into the new estimate.

The resource is based on 33,414 metres across 185 holes drilled at the site.

Epic shares fell 8% to 23¢ apiece on Thursday morning in Toronto, for a market capitalization of $15.9 million (US$11 million). The stock has traded in a 12-month range of 17¢ to 38¢.