Vanstar Mining Resources is a Quebec-focused low-risk, exploration play

• Nelligan is recognized as ‘world-class’ discovery and it is growing
• Project has been advanced from grassroots stage to resource in just three years
• Four major gold zones established at Nelligan – Renard, Liam, Dan and 36

What Vanstar Mining does:

Vanstar Mining Resources Inc (CVE:VSR) was founded in 2008 and is a northern-Quebec-focused gold explorer with projects at various stages of development.

The company’s flagship asset is its 25% ownership of the advanced Nelligan project, which won the ‘Discovery of the Year’ award at the 2019 Quebec Mineral Exploration Association XPLOR Gala. In the same year, a resource estimate showed 3.2 million of inferred ounces of the yellow metal at a grade of 1.02 grams per ton (g/t) gold.

Mining major IAMGOLD is the company’s partner and operator at Nelligan and owns 75% of the near 6,000 hectare project and can earn 80% by funding and publishing a feasibility study. 

The larger firm is funding the project’s development to production and Vanstar would retain a 20% carried interest until the start of commercial output and a 1% net smelter returns royalty (NSR) on the eight original project claims. Nelligan is open along strike to the west and at depth.

Vanstar also owns 100% of four further exploration projects. Its Felix project spans 69 claims over 3,359 hectares and sits in the famous Abitibi greenstone belt. Previous drill results include nine samples of 1.5 metres (m) which were assayed and returned between 0.9 to 1.5 g/.t gold over 70m.  A 3,000m drilling program is currently in progress.

The Amanda project comprises 145 claims over 7,677 hectares and it lies 275 kilometres (km) northwest of Chibougamau. In 2020. four new gold showings were discovered up to 1.8 grams per ton (g/t) in mineralized sediments. Five known gold showings associated with iron lie at the property.

The Frida property consists of 45 mining claims and is subject to no NSR royalty, while the company’s Eva property is found in the James Bay area, northern Québec. The Matagami-Radisson road runs 30 km west of the Frida and Eva assets and summer access is via a jetty at the northern end of Sakami Lake at Km 56 on the Trans-Taïga gravel road, which sits 30 km north of the property.

Vanstar Mining also trades on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol 1V8 and on the US OTC market under VMNGF. Its market cap is around C$57 million and the company has around C$5.8 million in the bank.

How is it doing:

In July, Vanstar Mining announced that its joint venture partner, IAMGOLD Corporation (TSE:IMG) (NYSE:IAG) (FRA:IAL), is expected to drill about 9,500 metres on the Nelligan joint venture project in Quebec, which will include both definition drilling in the main resource area as well as step-out drilling with a focus on the west extension of the known mineralization. 

Vanstar said the drill program will support the completion of a future updated resource estimate. 

The company also noted that mapping of underexplored areas is ongoing and is focused on an area identified from IP and preliminary till survey results where 15 new outcrops have been identified to date.

In addition, exploration will also continue to identify and evaluate new targets, Vanstar said.

The Nelligan gold project is 75% owned by IAMGOLD with the remaining 25% interest belonging to Vanstar.  

Meanwhile in June, Vanstar concluded an Induced Polarity (IP) survey and planned to drill targets soon on its Felix property under development in the highly prolific Abitibi mining camp, in Quebec, Canada. 

The gold explorer said the IP survey focused on a western portion of the property, which had a “folded banded iron formation and preliminary results identified a number of chargeability anomalies that are consistent with previously reported MEGATEM conductors.”

As a result, the company is refining phase 2 of its drill program on the property and said it “intends to drill the targets as soon as possible.” Vanstar said a drill rig has been secured that will be available to begin the program in September.

Inflection points:

• Nelligan drilling news from IAMGOLD
• Exploration news from Vanstar’s other projects
• Gold price moves

What the boss says:

In March 2021, Vanstar Mining chief executive JC St-Amour spoke to Proactive’s Christine Corrado.

He said: “I think Vanstar’s a great company … the way I see it, it’s a low risk, exploration play. Nelligan has been largely de-risked. It’s being advanced by IAMGOLD and it basically supplies most of the value in the company right now and so any exploration upside we get would be in addition to that. I would expect good results from exploration to be reflective in the stock.”

Contact Sean at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors