Well, 5 million ounce is not that optimistic. It sounds quite realistic. I used to work on that break and have inside information about what is left in 4 mines. I worked at Kerr Addison in the 38 and 21 orebodies. I worked for Forbes in exploration on the main break, sampling and stripping the Federal Kirkland property, which is now in Zenda Capital.
The Lakeshore ran at .50 ounce per ton. It was never mined out. It was re-opened by Dynatec-Lac before Sheehan left Lac and died. He was the driver behind that. It produced 16 million ounces in it career. The Macassa reached 8,000 feet. It was still going but had some ground problems and stopped for a while. Most of the other mines stopped at 35 dollar gold, or during the war when labour was short. During the 35 dollar gold period there occured been 36 years of inflation but no increase in the receipts at mines. Today two things have changed. The number of tons per man produced has increased by perhaps 5 to 10 times, safety has increased, and milling costs have gone down. Gold is also now floating in price.
The KGI people have gone on record as saying that 20 million ounces is a possible target to aim at. They have assembled an unbroken land position that has never been before put together
- of mines and good properties in a high grade, high production camp. New zones have been discovered that point to potential in the north break that was not known until recently.
The hockey Espositos put some money into a company in the 80's that did some drilling to extreme depth on the north break. I forget the name of the company. Newfields perhaps. They had some smells but could not justify big work. The KGI north break work is a follow up of some of that work. Much of the potential of the camp as demonstrated by J.B. Tyrell way back when, starts at 4,000 feet in depth. You have to get down there to prove up things. Going underground and drifting is the only way to do it.
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