Pacific Sentinel hopes to hit jackpot with New Casino

With drilling completed for the season at its Casino copper-gold-molybdenum project in the southern Yukon, Pacific Sentinel Gold (VSE) has arrived at a preliminary mineral estimate.

The deposit is believed to contain about 584 million tons grading 0.26% copper, 0.025% molybdenum and 0.008 oz. gold per ton. The estimate is based on 161,000 ft. of grid drilling in 106 holes.

Dimensions of the deposit are 4,200 ft. north-south and 2,600 ft. east-west. It has an average thickness of 1,160 ft.

A further 31 million tons grading 0.11% copper, 0.024% moly and 0.020 oz. gold are available in the leached cap which overlies the supergene and hypogene zones. The leached zone averages 212 ft. in thickness and is covered by about 26 ft. of overburden.

Below the leached cap, the supergene-enriched zone averages 182 ft. in thickness while the hypogene material below that is about 766 ft. thick. The supergene enriched zone contains 95 million tons grading 0.43% copper, 0.031% molybdenum and 0.012 oz. gold, including a higher-grade section measuring about 53 million tons at 0.52% copper, 0.013 oz. gold and 0.039% moly.

Pacific Sentinel is proceeding with engineering, environmental and permitting work for the project, as well as metallurgical tests on the various types of mineralization.

Additional work is planned for next year, including infill drilling for final mine planning purposes and step-out drilling to determine the ultimate size of the deposit, which remains open to the west and the north. Pacific Sentinel noted that the Yukon government has demonstrated its support of mining by announcing a strategy to ensure that electrical power will be made available for large new developments.

The territory’s current power grid is not sufficient to support a new mine as large as that envisaged by Pacific Sentinel. New generating capacity would have to be added.