Pure Gold Mining Inc. kicked off a 12,000-meter diamond-drilling program at its Madsen-Red Lake gold project in Ontario, with completion expected in December.

The campaign will largely focus on the Wedge deposit and along strike extensions, with limited work at the Fork and Russet South deposits.

Pure Gold said May 31 that the program will also continue surface work to prepare a further 24 high-priority exploration targets for future discovery drilling.

A February preliminary economic assessment on Madsen indicated that the Wedge, Fork and Russet South deposits could add C$51 million to the project's after-tax net present value of C$247 million, at a 5% discount rate.