Gold is back at it; testing the all-important $1,500 U.S. marker that so many analysts anticipated. Of course, miners are loving the sound of gold and metal prices still surging northward with speculation of where it could be in the next 10 years. Common consensus is that the sky is the limit with no real solution in sight for the economic problems that looms like a dark cloud over the vast majority of the globe.
Balmoral Resources Ltd. (TSX-Venture:BAR), a Vancouver-based junior exploration firm, is planning on taking the rising value of metals to the bank in the future. Balmoral's portfolio contains an array of projects from early to advanced stages located in the Abitibi greenstone belt which stretches through Quebec and eastern Ontario.
This area is well-proven for gold as evident through the Detour Lake, Casa Berardi, Timmins, Kirkland and Val-D'Or gold mining camps that have produced well over 130 million ounces of gold; representing the second largest accumulation of gold on our planet. This region has especially shined in the last five years; hosting some of the largest gold finds in the world over that span.
Today, Balmoral announced results from its Martiniere Project, located along the Detour Lake Gold Trend in central Quebec. The West Zone is one of three known gold zones on the project with the latest drill results expanding the size of the gold zone and leaving it open for further expansion.
Results from drill hole MDW11-04 has confirmed the presence of a broad, shallow core of high-grade gold mineralization within the central portion of the West Zone. Hole MDW11-04 intersected three formidable, high-grade gold bearing intervals which returned 10.51 g/t gold over 9.72 metres, 10.58 g/t gold over 6.93 metres and 10.95 g/t gold over 0.56 metres within a broader mineralized envelope which returned 2.58 g/t gold over 72.37 metres.
The recent results are in-line with revised assay results from hole MDW11-01 which, returned high grade intercepts of 13.01 g/t gold over 12 metres, 4.54 g/t gold over 5.25 metres and 10.50 g/t gold over 0.50 metres within a broader mineralized envelope which returned 2.70 g/t gold over 72 metres.
The mineralized intercept in hole MDW11-04 is located approximately 60 metres southwest of, and at slightly shallower depths than, the high-grade intercepts in Hole MDW11-01.
While the drilling is still relatively new, the results have been very promising with follow-up assay results increasing gold grade. Metallic screen gold assay results from hole MDW11-01 increased the grade of the upper, high-grade intercept in hole MDW11-01 by 16.4% to 13.01 g/t gold over 12 metres and the overall grade of the 72-metre wide West Zone has increased by 12.5% from 2.40 to 2.70 g/t gold.
Things are going the right way for Balmoral as it was even learned that one of the samples within the upper high-grade interval was assayed incorrectly and reviewed for error. Upon review, the assay, which was accidentally mislabeled, actually was 21.70 g/t gold rather than the 0.17 g/t gold initially reported.
Investors are reacting positively to the news today as the volume is at an all-time one-day high with more than one million shares trading hands. Shares are off their highs, but still holding the morning upward gap and trading at a 10% premium to yesterday’s close in the last hour of this week’s trading.
