Cambior eyes Gordex’s new Maritime gold zone

In a small, modern office on Union Street in the downtown core here, Morton Gordon, chairman of Gordex Minerals (TSE) (and six other publicly- listed gold exploration companies), recounts his earlier attempts to fund gold exploration in New Brunswick.

“I pounded that street in Toronto (Bay Street) many times trying to finance this company,” Gordon muses. “But they told us there was no gold in New Brunswick.”

Now, after proving that heap leaching of gold can be done year- round in this climate and with Gordex becoming the province’s only primary gold producer in the process, the company is preparing to become a sizeable producer.

Gordon expects to ink an option agreement between Gordex and Val d’Or-based Cambior Inc. (TSE) within weeks. Based on the terms set out in the letter of intent, that agreement could lead to a very rapid increase in ore reserves on the Cape Spencer property, a short 20-minute drive from Gordon’s downtown office.

The agreement is expected to commit the Quebec major to fund exploration work on the recently discovered Northeast zone to earn a 55% interest. The zone was discovered by Gordex earlier this year (N.M., Feb 29/88).

The fifth hole of a 14-hole program, which ended Feb 29, intersected a lens of gold-bearing mineralization at a depth of about 700 ft. The gold occurs in association with cubic crystals of pyrite and as native gold in sporadic quartz veining, all in a unit of metamorphosed conglomerates, sandstones and siltstones which lie unconformably on the crystalline Precambrian basement rocks. The high grade portion of the zone assayed 0.25 oz gold per ton, but lower grade gold values (0.05 oz) extend out from the zone for a distance of up to 20 m.

“I was trying to get them to drill, what was to me, an obvious target that I thought they had missed,” Gordon recalls.

“Chemical alteration in the first five holes showed us which direction we should be moving,” consulting geologist Peter Tyler of Derry, Michener, Booth & Wahl says.

By stepping out 50 m and drilling nine more holes before the Feb 29 deadline for flow- through financing, Gordex outlined the 20 degrees -dipping zone over an area measuring 150 m by 130 m.

The zone is wide open in all directions and is completely new geologically for the Maritimes.

“We’re looking at grades and widths suitable for underground mining and with the structure of the property clearly layed out, we’re looking at something that could be significant in size,” Tyler says, “at least one order of magnitude more significant than the Gordex pit (which has about 550,000 tons of proven ore remaining, grading about 0.07 oz).”

The results released earlier this year immediately caused a stir among major exploration companies. There were so many requests for briefings that Gordex lawyer Paul Zed was put in charge of putting together the items Gordex would like to have in a possible joint venture. Of the six companies who where interested in making a deal, Cambior was by far the most impressive, Zed says.

“They were in no hurry, they were the most aggressive, consistent and professional. And they ended up giving us everything we wanted.”

Derry Michener Booth & Wahl has been asked to manage the joint venture program. They have recommended a $1.4-million drilling program consisting of 10,000 m of in-fill drilling as well as drilling to extend the zone along strike and down dip.

The results of this program will be used to evaluate a $3-4-million underground exploration program which may be justified to evaluate the deposit.

Four other companies hold ground in the immediate area of the new zone. Glenvet Resources (VSE) holds ground adjoining the Gordex property on the east, Cuvier Mines (TSE) has claims bordering the Glenvet ground on the east and Brunex Gold (COATS) holds a block of claims east of that.

A private company called Mispec Resources of Saint John controls the most promising ground, in the up-dip direction. If there is any open pit potential for the zone it would be on the Mispec property, Tyler says. Mispec has filed for a listing on the Montreal exchange.