Integra Resources Corp. said Nov. 28 that it plans to spend C$10 million exploring the DeLamar gold project, a past producing mine in Idaho, in 2018.
The junior explorer, which recently acquired the project from Kinross Gold Corp., said it would drill 20,000 meters mostly aimed at confirming historic exploration work at DeLamar. Based on past exploration data, Integra recently estimated DeLamar's inferred resources at 117.9 million tonnes grading 0.41 g/t of gold and 24.34 g/t of silver at a cutoff grade of 0.3 g/t of gold equivalent.
Integra also said it would use material from drilling to test what methods, including lower cost heap leaching and milling, may work to extract gold from DeLamar.
Then in late 2018, the DeLamar resource estimate will be updated, Integra said. That will followed by a preliminary economic assessment of the project in 2019. In the assessment, Integra said it would consider scenarios where it mills higher grade areas of the deposit and heap leaches lower grade halos to those zones.
DeLamar last produced gold in 1998 and Kinross, an Integra shareholder, has said it sold the project because it was noncore.
