North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Benchmark Metals Inc. Aug. 24 said it plans to complete up to 100,000 meters of drilling this year and 200,000 meters during 2021 at its Lawyers gold-silver project in northern British Columbia.

This massive expansion of its exploration at Lawyers follows the announcement that it would be raising C$48 million through a brokered private placement financing led by Sprott Capital Partners, which is more than twice the C$21 million original offering.

"The keen interest and capital support from key institutional investors establishes Benchmark's Lawyers gold-silver project as one of Canada's leading exploration stories and illustrates its potential to deliver a quality mining asset," said Benchmark Metals CEO John Williamson. "To that end, the company will plan and execute systematic work programs over the next two years to go beyond the PEA (preliminary economic assessment) towards a feasibility study."

Situated about 45 kilometers (28 miles) northwest of the world-class Kemess gold-copper porphyry deposit, Lawyers is home to a small underground mining operation that produced 171,200 ounces of gold and 3.6 million oz of silver over a four-year period beginning in 1989.

This historical mining, carried out by Cheni Gold Mines, included production from the Cliffs Creek, Phoenix and AGB zones.

The deposits were never fully mined, or the surrounding area thoroughly explored, and Benchmark has identified additional high-grade and bulk tonnage gold-silver targets within the central area of Lawyers trend, a more than 20-kilometer- (12.4 miles) long prospective corridor that runs across the property.

Benchmark sees the potential of building a 5-million-oz gold-equivalent resource in four zones it has identified in the central portion of the Lawyers trend. Toward this goal, the company originally planned to complete 50,000 meters of drilling on the property this year, a program that has now been expanded to 100,000 meters.

In order to meet this accelerated schedule, the company plans to establish the camp and other infrastructure needed to carry out year-round exploration at Lawyers.

Benchmark Metals Inc.

Benchmark plans to incorporate its 2020 drilling into an updated resource slated for early 2021, which will form the basis for a PEA expected by mid-year.

The 200,000 meters of drilling planned for next year will focus primarily on upgrading resources to the measured and indicated categories in anticipation of completing a feasibility study that details the financial and engineering parameters of a mine at Lawyers during 2022.

In addition to the very large drill campaign, this accelerated schedule will require a large amount of engineering, permitting and baseline environmental work to generate detailed engineering and economic studies in order to develop and support a mining scenario.

The C$48 million financing slated to close in mid-September will help fund this rapid advancement of the Lawyers gold-silver project.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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