Introduction
Location: West-Central Quebec, 65 km NW of Matagami – Part of the Detour Gold Trend Project
Balmoral Ownership: 100%
Royalty Interest: None
Target: Magmatic Nickel, Copper, Cobalt, PGE
Secondary Target: Orogenic Gold
Significant Resources: Grasset Nickel-Copper-Cobalt- Platinum-Palladium Deposit:
- Indicated Resource Estimate (2016)* – 3.5 million tonnes @ 1.56% Ni, 0.17% Cu, 0.03% Co, 0.34 g/t Pt and 0.84 g/t Pd; open to depth and along strike for further expansion
Significant Discoveries: Grasset Gold Zone 33.0 metres @ 1.6 g/t gold including 4.04 metres @ 6.15 g/t gold
Highlights
The Grasset Property covers the southern portion of the Grasset Ultramafic Complex (“GUC”) which extends across the Company’s adjacent Fenelon and Jeremie Properties for a minimum of 10 kilometres. The GUC is wholly owned by Balmoral and hosts numerous magmatic nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE discoveries made since 2012.
The most significant of these to date is the Grasset deposit, a Type 2 komatiite-hosted nickel sulphide deposit. Grasset is one of the largest nickel sulphide deposits in Canada’s Abitibi region, and the only North American nickel sulphide deposit with >50,000 contained tonnes of nickel and an average nickel grade of over 1.5% not controlled by a major mining company.
Following the discovery of the high grade core of the deposit in 2014, an intensive resource definition drill program continued until late 2015, when low nickel prices prompted the program to be suspended. An initial resource estimate and preliminary metallurgical testing results were published in early 2016, and all exploration activity ceased with the deposit remaining open to depth and along strike to the northwest.
Recent (fall 2018) expansion drilling on the deposit, the first since 2015, has successfully expanded the deposit and set the stage for additional expansion work planned for 2019.
In addition to the magmatic nickel potential of the GUC, Balmoral has identified a number of zones of gold mineralization on the Grasset property both within the regional-scale Sunday Lake deformation zone which transects the property and within secondary structures marginal to the GUC.
The Company also recognizes the potential for copper-zinc-gold-silver VMS deposits on the property. This potential exists both within the felsic volcanic rocks proximal to the GUC, where drilling has intersected numerous copper-zinc occurrences and recently intersected and extensive pyrite-rhyolite breccia (“millrock”), and further east toward the Matagami VMS camp which hosts the producing Bracemac-McLeod mine complex and numerous other past-producing VMS deposits.
* Please see additional disclosure on the Grasset Ni-Cu-Co-PGE Zone page of this website.