The Mitchi property is located 10 km west of the Mitchinamecus reservoir and 100 km north of the town of Mont-Laurier. It is part of the Mitchi-Wabash mineralized district and spans over 250 km2. The property is accessible via a well-developed network of forestry roads and is close to a hydroelectric substation located 15 km to the east.
Situated in the northwestern portion of the central metasedimentary belt of the Grenville geological province, the Mitchi project hosts a copper-silver sediment-hosted stratiform copper type deposit (‘SSC’) in its eastern part, of which copper sulphide mineralization is generally found within olivine marble and diopside gneiss layers. In the western part, it exhibits characteristics more akin to a porphyritic system, Iron Oxide Copper-Gold (IOCG) deposit, and/or a ‘skarn’ type deposit. Osisko Mining Inc. (“Osisko”) holds a 2% royalty on net smelter returns (NSR) from 27 claims located outside the sedimentary basin.
The SSC portion of the project was discovered in 2017, following up on historical work by Noranda in the 1970s and other exploration efforts over the past 20 years. The deposit remained undiscovered until properly studied by the Kintavar exploration team, due to the challenging understanding of SSC-type deposits in high-grade metamorphic conditions typical of the Grenville.
The sedimentary basin, extending over 15 km in length, has now been shown to contain several mineralized zones of varying thicknesses, all starting from surface. Metallurgical studies have demonstrated the potential to produce high-grade copper concentrates up to 59%, with recoveries reaching 80%. The main Sherlock area is surrounded by numerous other zones that could potentially support open-pit mining to facilitate a large-scale operation.
A maiden resource estimate (MRE) was independently conducted by InnovExplo Inc. on the Sherlock zone of the Mitchi property. The estimated measured and indicated resources for the Sherlock zone are approximately 2.99 million tonnes at a grade of 0.4% copper and 4 g/t silver. These resources are confined to a shallow open pit and are based on a cut-off grade of 0.2% copper. The estimation process used data from 66 drill holes, covering a total of 10,150 meters, which were completed between 2017 and 2022. The mineral resource estimate confirms the potential of a hub-and-spoke model for the Mitchi project.
| Mitchi Project | Mineral Resources | Tonnes | Copper (%) | Silver (g/t) | Lbs of Copper | Ounces of Silver |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sherlock | Measured | 6,000 | 0.47 | 2.4 | 57,200 | 400 |
| Indicated | 2,983,000 | 0.40 | 4.0 | 26,305,300 | 385,500 | |
| Measured + Indicated | 2,989,000 | 0.40 | 4.0 | 26,362,500 | 385,900 | |
| Inferred | 85,000 | 0.35 | 3.8 | 653,400 | 10,200 |
Results of the 2023 Mineral Resources Estimate.
