Skeena Resources Ltd. Sept. 9 announced that infill drilling at its Eskay Creek project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle has discovered a previously unidentified vent carrying high-grade gold and silver.

According to a resource calculated in February, Eskay Creek hosts 12.71 million metric tons of surface mineable indicated resource averaging 4.5 grams per metric ton (1.8 million ounces) gold and 117 g/t (47.79 million oz) silver; and 13.57 metric tons of surface mineable inferred resource averaging 2.2 g/t (984,000 oz) gold and 42 g/t (18.5 million oz) silver.

The primary focus of a roughly 15,000-meters surface drill program that got underway in August is to carry out infill drilling to upgrade inferred resources to the higher confidence indicated category.

Highlights from the initial batch of results include:

• 7.54 meters averaging 16.52 g/t gold and 73 g/t silver in hole SK-19-052;

• 5.83 meters of 28.38 g/t gold and 1 g/t silver in SK-19-055;

• 18.5 meters of 17.38 g/t gold and 113 g/t silver in SK-19-057; and

• 22.65 meters of 17.93 g/t gold and 15 g/t silver in SK-19-058.

All these holes were drilled in 21A, one of four zones that host the surface mineable resources at Eskay Creek. It had been previously thought that the western lobe of 21A Zone gold-silver mineralization was hosted exclusively in tabular contact mudstone that ranged from one to 10 meters thick. Holes SK-19-057 and SK-19-058, however, intersected a previously unidentified hydrothermal vent in this location having intersected significantly wider intervals of high-grade gold.

Skeena Resources said the discovery of this new high-grade vent demonstrates that, in addition to upgrading resources, infill drilling can add tonnage to the deposit.

As resource upgrade drilling continues, Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. is working on a preliminary economic assessment for resuming mining at Eskay Creek.

From 1994 to 2008, Barrick Gold Corp. operated an underground mine at Eskay Creek that produced roughly 3.3 million ounces of gold and 160 million oz of silver at average grades of 45 grams per metric ton gold and 2,224 g/t silver, which at the time made it the world's highest-grade gold mine and fifth-largest silver mine by volume.

Skeena, which acquired the property from Barrick in 2017, has focused primarily on shallow zones that can be mined from surface.

The PEA, which will likely also focus on this scenario, is slated for completion before the end of the year.

A trade-off analysis is currently being finalized that weighs the pros and cons of using flotation to create a concentrate that can be processed at off-site smelters or pouring gold-silver doré on site.

In addition to the open-pit resource, Eskay Creek hosts 819,000 metric tons of underground indicated resource averaging 6.4 g/t (169,000 oz) gold and 139 g/t (3.66 million oz) silver; and 295,000 metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 7.1 g/t (78,000 oz) gold and 82 g/t (778,000 oz) silver.

–SHANE LASLEY