A meeting of the minerals? EGR Exploration’s Detour West and Agnico Eagle’s Detour Lake – Richard Mills

2024.06.25

In exploration, it’s important to be a nosy neighbor, almost as important as being ‘on or along trend.’

Mineralization, close to surface or buried deep underground, knows no boundaries. It can extend from your property onto a neighboring property. Or maybe a neighbouring property’s mineralization can carry over onto your property.

Either way, it’s good news for a junior, in this case EGR Exploration (TSXV:EGR), hunting for gold in Ontario’s Abitibi.

Detour West

EGR’s flagship Detour West property is about 300 km north of Timmins. It covers 40,255 hectares (35 km long by 15 km wide) of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, one of the most prospective regions for gold on the planet. Many gold deposits found in the Abitibi region are considered world-class; the average gold deposit grade here is higher than the global average.

Located in the northern part of the Abitibi, the Detour-Fenelon Gold Trend spans over 200 km of prospective strike length potential along the Sunday Lake and Lower Detour deformation zones. EGR’s property is located 20 km west of Agnico Eagle’s (TSX:AEM) Detour Lake open-pit mine (hence the name “Detour West”), and also directly adjoins Agnico’s holdings along the trend.

A regional geology map from Agnico Eagle shows three deformation zones running east-west, right to the eastern edge of Agnico’s Detour Lake property. The deformation zones are labeled Sunday Lake, Massicote and Lower Detour.

Gold mineralization is associated with structural contact on the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone (SLDZ). The SLDZ runs through the Detour Lake mine’s Main Pit, West Pit, and the West Pit Extension.

If the Detour Lake – Regional Geology Map is correct in its interpretation, it would mean that, rather than ending abruptly at the western edge of the Detour Lake property, the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone, and potentially the other two deformation zones, Massicote and Lower Detour, might continue in a westerly direction, possibly right onto EGR’s Detour West.

EGR’s exploration plan is simple: prove that Detour West is on trend with Agnico Eagle’s Detour Lake mine and its 20.7Moz of reserves. That happens if they can prove the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone, and potentially the other two deformation zones, Massicote and Lower Detour continues in a westerly direction, possibly right onto EGR’s Detour West.

Detour Lake expansion

Agnico Eagle just put out some very good news for EGR’s shareholders.

AGNICO EAGLE RELEASES DETOUR LAKE PROPOSED UNDERGROUND MINING PLAN DEMONSTRATING STRONG RETURNS AND PATHWAY TO ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION OF ONE MILLION OUNCES

A key takeaway for me is;

“Regional targets include: northwest of the Detour Lake trend probing northwest-trending structures; the Detour mineralized trend north of the interpreted thrust fault intrusive to the east; geophysical features in the McAlpine and Central sediments; along the Lower Detour and Massicotte deformation trend areas; and the regional Sunday Lake and Massicotte deformation trends on the Detour East option.”

In a nutshell AEM is going to do some of EGR’s work for them, by starting exploratory drilling just a few kilometers east on the other side of the Detour West boundary.

Take a look at the map below. The red boxes contain Agnico Eagle’s regional exploration targets for 2024, one box is within five kilometers of the property’s western-most boundary.

So what does EGR do now? Well, the smart move is to do nothing on Detour West for now. Management is going to wait and see what Agnico Eagle finds. 

“Detour’s a career-maker but the timing’s got to be there.” CEO Daniel Rodriguez

Conclusion

I agree with this approach. No point in drilling if Agnico Eagle does the job for them and proves (or disproves) EGR’s geological theory that the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone, and potentially the other two deformation zones, Massicote and Lower Detour, might continue in a westerly direction, possibly right onto EGR’s Detour West.

EGR has a tight capital structure at just over 40 million shares out with nearly 22 million warrants. Retail is the smallest component of the shareholder base, with management, institutions and high net worth individuals owning the rest.

Agnico Eagle is prepared to spend $65 million on exploration over three years and their drills will be moving in the direction of EGR’s Detour West eastern property boundary.

I’ll be watching for results from Agnico Eagle’s western regional exploration program closely.

EGR Exploration Ltd.
TSXV:EGR
Cdn$0.05, 2024.06.24
Shares Outstanding 40.2m
Market cap Cdn$2.0m
EGR website

Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com
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Richard does not own shares of EGR Exploration Ltd. (TSXV:EGR). EGR is a paid advertiser on his site aheadoftheherd.com

This article is issued on behalf of EGR