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 estimate awaited
• 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 kilometres (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 18 km long 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 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 has continued its run of positive exploration results throughout 2020 and into 2021.

Beginning in January this year, 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.

Highlight results have included 38.4 g/t gold over 5.5m from 36.5 to 42m depth in one hole and 29.17 g/t gold over 15.50 m from a depth of 41.80 to 57.30m.

A deeper hole intersected 5.29 g/t gold over 29m from a depth of 397.50 to 426.50m, including high-grade core of 62.13 g/t gold over 1.60m from 405m to 406.60m.

In March, Great Bear noted that deep holes had doubled the drill-confirmed vertical extent of the significant LP Fault target.

And on April 22, the company posted assays from 13 holes at the LP Fault, which, it noted, remains open in all directions, and where the area of continuous gold mineralization has been extended by about 25% by drilling this year alone.

Two ‘step-down’ holes extended mineralization by over 100m below previous drilling, with assays showing 11.18 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 6.75m from 524.2m to 530.95m depth in one hole, while infill drilling within 75m and 100m in previously undrilled gaps in the zone also continued to deliver high-grade and bulk-tonnage gold intercepts, the firm said.

Great Bear has released 283 drill hole results from the LP Fault and anticipates at least 117 more will be completed by the end of 2021, for a total of at least 400 holes.

In  April, Great Bear said a sixth rig is being added to the Dixie project to accelerate the 2021 drill program and will continue to infill as well as expand on the three main gold zones, including the Hinge, Dixie Limb and LP Fault zones. .

The company has said it is fully financed through 2022 after closing a ‘bought-deal’ private placement launched in July 2020, raising total gross proceeds of nearly C$70 million. The offering was oversubscribed, with 14 institutional investors from across North America, Australia and Europe participating.

The explorer also increased the exploration budget at Dixie to C$45 million from C$20 million previously.

In all, the company aims to have drilled 600 holes at the site in total by the end of 2021, for around 400,000 meters (m) with 175,000m sunk in 2021.

About 80% of the planned drilling will target the LP Fault, while 15% will target the Hinge and Dixie Limb zones.

What the broker says:

Following the announcement on April 22 of the latest 13 drill hole results from the LP Fault zone, Research Capital Corp repeated its ‘Speculative Buy’ rating on Great Bear shares and C$36 a share target.

“We continue to be impressed with the ability of Great Bear to discover depth extensions (as expected) and continuity along strike of the LP Fault zone,” said analysts.

“The deposit continues to demonstrate broad zones of “lower grade” (+1 g/t) and high-grade intercepts with some regularity (including multi-ounce intercepts).

“It is the combination of these two that makes the LP Fault zone a very valuable deposit, in our view, and enforces our opinion that it will become a world-class, multi-million ounce gold deposit.”

Inflection points:

• More exploration results
• A maiden resource estimate
• Gold price moves

What the boss says:

In the company’s most recent LP Fault drill results statement, CEO of Great Bear Chris Taylor told investors: “Predictability is a trait that builds first-class mineral deposits, distinguishing the ‘best of the best’ With every week that goes by, we successfully expand and fill in the LP Fault zone precisely because of its impressive, predictable continuity. 

“In four months so far in 2021, we’ve already extended the area of drill-defined continuous gold mineralization at the LP Fault by approximately 25%.  At the scale of the LP Fault, this is an impressive achievement with few current exploration stage parallels.”

Contact the author at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors