Ardiden to kick-off Canadian gold drilling after securing key permit

Special Report: Drilling is imminent at Ardiden’s Pickle Lake gold project in Canada after it secured the key exploration permit and support from all First Nation groups.

The company has engaged a drilling contractor and expects a rig to be in place at the Kasagiminnis permit within two weeks, giving it enough time to complete its planned summer program.

Ardiden (ASX:ADV) is also continuing exploration activity across all of its other gold deposits and prospects at its District-scale Pickle Lake Gold Project.

“Now that we have all the necessary permits, we are very much looking forward and moving quickly to commence our summer drilling campaign at our flagship Kasagiminnis gold deposit and thanks to our recent capital raising, preparing for a larger winter program,” exploration manager Dan Grabiec said from the Company’s Thunder Bay office.

Drilling will test an exploration target of between 500,000 and 1.2 million ounces of gold at Kasagiminnis, where previous drilling returned thick, shallow intercepts like 21m grading 3.97 grams per tonne (g/t), 67m from surface.

Ardiden’s gold deposits and prospects in orange, and other exploration companies active in the Pickle Lake region Pic: Supplied

Exploring in elephant country

Ardiden’s Pickle Lake Gold Project covers 664sqkm of highly prospective ground in Ontario, Canada, and more importantly is comparable in size and geology to Evolution Mining’s (ASX:EVN) producing 30-million-ounce Red Lake gold district, right next door.

It is also next to the Pickle Crow Gold project, where Auteco Minerals (ASX:AUT) has a 5 year 80% earn-in arrangement with the current owner, and recently announced a JORC resource of 830,000oz resource at a grade of 11.6g/t gold.

The Kasagiminnis deposit is already 100% owned by Ardiden and has a current JORC resource of 790,000 tonnes grading 4.3g/t for 110,000oz of gold estimated over a length of just 600m and tested to a maximum depth of only 280m.

This is barely scratching the surface of the deep gold system compared to its neighbours, some of whom are drilling gold 2km below surface.

Kasagiminnis also remains open to the east and west, which raises the potential for the resource to scale up.

This article was developed in collaboration with Ardiden, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.