Great Bear Resources is well financed and drilling at one of the largest new gold discoveries in Canada

• District scale opportunity at Dixie with initial resource expected in 2021
• Two types of gold discoveries on the same property
• Very well-financed

What Great Bear Resources does:

Great Bear Resources Ltd (CVE:GBR) (OTCMKTS:GTBDF) struck a deal five years ago to acquire the Dixie mining claims in Ontario’s prolific Red Lake gold mining district and has been successfully advancing the project since.

Dixie consists of 9,140 hectares of contiguous claims that extend over 22 kilometers (km). The project lies around 25km southeast of the mining town of Red Lake and is accessible by a highway.

The property has played host to some eye-catching drill assays and multiple high-grade gold discoveries, namely at the Dixie Limb, Hinge, Bear-Rimini, Yuma, Auro, Yauro, Viggo and Gap zones. Six of these are now considered one zone that is hosted by the LP Fault zone, which is basically an 18km target that is being continuously explored by the company.

Great Bear now controls over 300 square km of highly prospective ground across four projects in the district – they are the Pakwash property, the Dedee property and the Sobel property. As well as Dixie, these are all properties in which the firm is earning a 100% interest.

The renowned Red Lake gold district has historically produced around a whopping 30 million ounces of the yellow metal from 29 mines.

How is it doing: 

Great Bear Resources continues its run of positive exploration results throughout the year and into 2021.

On February 8, the company released another round of drill results from three new holes at the LP Fault zone on the company’s flagship Dixie project in Red Lake, Ontario. 

Results from drill section 19925 included 13.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold over 18.2 metres (m) from about 30m to 48m, including a high-grade core of 38.4 g/t gold over 5.5m from 36.5 to 42m in hole BR-253. 

The firm also released results from the LP Fault zone in late November that included 101.5m at 4.69 g/t gold and 5.25m of 41.25 g/t gold at the LP Fault.

The company then followed it up by almost doubling the depth of the Hinge zone to over 850 vertical metres. Assays from Hinge released in December included 15.18 g/t gold over 4.9m from 1,190.9m to 1,195.8m within a broader interval of 6 g/t gold over 15.3m, as the company noted the hole intersected the deep extension of the Hinge zone 850m vertically below the surface, and 510m down-plunge from the previous deepest Hinge zone intercept.  

Beginning in January, Great Bear reported more drill results from the LP Fault, which continue to demonstrate the zone’s credentials, including high grade and bulk tonnage gold mineralization. Results included 1.34 g/t gold over 29.45m from bedrock surface starting at 18m depth in one hole, and 3.24 g/t of gold over 19m from bedrock surface, from 23m in another.

Highlight shallow but high-grade drill results included 16.56 g/t gold over 11m from 162.50 to 173.50m depth in one hole and 25.36 g/t of the precious metal over 4.65m from 139.35 to 144.00m in another.

Seven further widely-spaced drill holes were also completed along 500m of strike length on two further sections.

More positive news was to come from Dixie Limb, where metallurgical testing suggested that similar gold recovery process can be used at both the Dixie Limb and Hinge zones. Gold recoveries were very high for all four of the high accessory sulphide samples tested, showing similarities to Dixie’s Hinge zone low-sulphide samples.

In January, the company announced a bought deal private placement to bring in aggregate gross proceeds of almost C$70 million.

Inflection points:

• Exploration results
• A maiden resource estimate
• Continued gold price rise

What the broker says:

On February 8, Mackie Research analyst Adam Schatzker published an updated note on Great Bear Resources following the company’s latest drill results from the LP Fault zone of its Dixie Project in Red Lake, Ontario.

“The results re-enforce our thesis regarding the LP Fault zone and, in some cases, the results were better than we anticipated,” Schatzker said.

The analyst noted that the drill intercepts were all relatively shallow (within 200m of the surface) and are part of an ongoing drill campaign to better define the LP Fault zone in advance of a resource estimate, “which we expect to be published in 4Q/21 to 1Q/22.”

Schatzker, though, added that “the understanding of the continuity of the gold zones in the LP Fault will be critical to the estimation of the resource – especially tying together the high-grade zones.”

He concluded that if future results continue in line with the results released on February 8, “we expect that this portion of the LP Fault zone will be better than we expected with the potential for higher grades and more ounces.”

Schatzker reiterated his Speculative Buy rating and C$36 per share target price on GBR stock.

“We continue to believe that Great Bear will be a much sought-after acquisition target in the relatively near-term (possibly after it publishes its maiden 43-101 resource),” he said.

What the boss says:

Commenting on the latest round of promising results from the LP Fault Zone, Great Bear CEO Chris Taylor told Proactive: “There’s really exceptional continuity of the high grade that we’re seeing.

“What we’re seeing is consistent high grade mineralization surrounded by this bulk tonnage mineralization, and right to surface. I’m not aware of anybody else in the exploration industry that is going to be able to duplicate a series of results like that anytime in the near future – definitely not over a couple of hundred metres of strike length.”

Contact Sean at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors