Staff
Rainy River Resources announced last week it is increasing its 2010 exploration budget for its Northwestern Ontario properties by $6.1 million.
The board of directors approved an increase from $18.7 million to $24.8 million at its Aug. 11 meeting.
“We are extremely pleased that the board has provided our technical team with the budget they need in order to advance both the Rainy River and TPK projects,” Rainy River Resources president and CEO Raymond Threlkeld said in a press release.
“The stepped up exploration program at Rainy River for the remainder of 2010 will provide us with the detailed information that we require in order to determine the best and most value accretive development approach for this highly-prospective project,” he added.
The increase is a result of the excellent success in defining higher grades in the 433, ODM17, Beaver Pond, and South zones.
In addition, the company will be spending $3 million at the very high potential TPK joint venture in Northern Ontario.
The increased budget for the rest of 2010 will add to the amount of drilling from the current 53,000 metres completed to more than 90,000 metres by year-end at the Rainy River project.
The budget will concentrate on activities related to:
•exploration of newly-defined targets, including the VMS potential, extensions of high-grade, VMS-style mineralization, and geophysical targets in the South/Cap zones, the high-grade 433 Footwall Zone, where three high-grade intercepts have been discovered and previously reported, the Beaver Pond Deep Zone, and westward extensions of the Beaver Pond Zone;
•the delineation of the open pit and underground mineralization in the ODM17 and 433 zones to move resources into an Indicated category for scoping and resource updates; and
•preparing a detailed scoping study and resource report to incorporate all 2010 investigations, including a process flow sheet, geotechnical designs for the open pit and underground options, and environmental baseline and financial analysis (the study will be released in the first quarter of 2011).
