Renforth Resources: Drilling tales
Nicole Brewster, CEO of Renforth (RFR.C) Resources has been shepherding her Victoria polymetallic deposit on the Abitibi gold belt for several years. It is next door to Canadian Malartic. It has been an uphill fight but Nicole has pushed forward.
As well as being Renforth’s CEO, Nicole is a wonderfully engaging writer and she has been kind enough to give me permission to reprint her most recent newsletter. It is a ground’s eye view of drilling, up close and more than a little muddy.
Every time I read a press release with assays from three 300 meter holes I try to remember what the actual process of drilling is like. The one thing which is consistent is that it is never easy: drills break, or they hit voids, or water runs out. The list of things which can go wrong in a drill program can cover pages. Nicole catches the flavour here. Enjoy!
(I include this disclaimer as Nicole, as an officer of Renforth is subject to the 43-101 rules and regulations and this needs to be here.]
Firstly - this is not financial advice, a solicitation to purchase securities, an instruction or a guarantee - of anything!
This is simply myself, the President and CEO, sharing a brief update from the field, with any interested parties.
Does that mean you? I do not know.
Why? Why not - I think here are some who will find this interesting, maybe learn how exploration really happens, and some who will ignore it.
Or didn’t even open it!
C’est la vie, comme on dit, dans la belle province.…
You remember this image from the press release announcing this program - the red “X” is where our field team had core up to as of shift change this morning, approximately 246m down the hole. Production isn’t bad, this program will drill quite quickly, but it was a painful one to get started.
Let me tell you a story.
You recall the picture I sent of the drill being dragged to the first set up, past the stripped area of the Victoria polymetallic deposit. Things were going great then…but it didn’t last.
The bulldozer, and the drill it was dragging to the set up, got stuck in a mud hole and needed a second dozer walked out to push them out….in the interest of efficiency the two dozers were left either side of the hole, they will be needed again…
You can imagine we were happy to get updated that the drill was set up, water line run…ready to drill for night shift.
Well - they drained that water source (evidently not deep) in about 30 minutes.
The next day they ran the waterline further, in a straight line and finally - ready to rock and roll!
After drilling not much more than 80m the drill broke down…frustratingly with a failure of the same repair we waited to be completed before we started the program.
And we had thunderstorms…meaning the drill that had water source issues was now sitting in its own little lake (oh the irony) of rainwater.
Another chunk of delay…but repaired again and drilling again, and quickly.
Excellent production up until night shift change yesterday…more downtime during the night…but lots of core to log and sample today.
And the drill is still turning.
As you can see by the vertical section above we went through the first zone, separation is ~100m vertical, that is a depth extension.
This is what we meant when we say “the Victoria deposit is open at depth”..it means we have not drilled a hole under the mineralization which has missed intersecting the mineralization, a miss would constrain the mineralization, or terminate the zone.
That is not the case here!
So - our statement stands “the Victoria deposit is open at depth”.
But why did I send this?
Why not.
I get updates, and I find it exciting, there is always something happening - good and bad. But something is happening.
And I like those updates not just because it is my job, but because I am a shareholder. I literally mortgaged my house to buy stock…and everything I own (which isn’t a lot but I own it) is tied up in this company.
And I thought - while I am no doubt alone in my investment level (to my knowledge anyway) I am surely not alone in wanting to know what is happening in the field?
None of this is material until our geologist, whose work you see in the pictures in grease crayon, is done with his logging and other tasks, then the samples are taken, split, bagged and delivered to the lab for assay.
And we will wait (and wait and wait - patiently - no frustration there) for the results, which we will press release.
Then it is material.
Some of the readers of this newsletter know how this works, what happens, the excitement. But equally some of you do not know what goes on, and, if you are a shareholder you should!
Fair warning - if our man in the field - Francis R. Newton P.Geo OGQ APEG - co-operates, I will keep sending drill progress updates and pictures which you can read, or not.
And yes - unbelievably - we are still waiting for Parbec assays. As you know I overshare, when I know the Parbec gold results you will know. And yes, there is a story there….for another day.
Renforth is trading at $0.025 as I write this. As Nicole points out, it will be sometime before the assays come back from the lab. There is mineralization and it is open at depth, but what grade? How deep? Nicole and her shareholders are on the edge of their seats. For $25.00 you can buy 1000 shares and join them.
(Disclaimer: I hold shares of Renforth which I may sell at any time. This is not investment advice. Do your own due diligence. Call the CEO - Nicole is great on the phone.)