Castillian Resources Corp V.CT announced January 17 assay results from the 21 drillholes of a 5,951-metre program on its Hope Brook Gold Project in Newfoundland. The drilling intersected multiple zones of gold mineralization in a new near-surface target zone in the Mine Zone-240 Connector Target, located approximately 900 metres southwest of the former Hope Brook openpit. Highlights include (including results released December 11):

1.07 grams per tonne gold, 0.05% copper over 18.1 metres
1.52 g/t gold, 0.05% copper over 14 metres
2.14 g/t gold, 0.45% copper over 29.6 metres
2.69 g/t gold, 0.58% copper over 14.6 metres
5.24 g/t gold, 1.47% copper over 4.3 metres
1.9 g/t gold, 0.12% copper over 39.1 metres

The Hope Brook Gold Project consists of 25,000 hectares located 45 kilometres northwest of Burgeo. Its historic mine produced 752,163 ounces gold from 1987 to 1997. According to an October 2012 43-101 resource estimate, it contains (within the constraining shell at a 0.5 g/t cutoff) 10.6 million tonnes grading 1.24 g/t for 422,000 ounces gold indicated and 6.5 million tonnes grading 1.91 g/t for 397,000 ounces gold inferred and (below the constraining shell at a 2 g/t cutoff) 1.7 million tonnes grading 2.99 g/t for 168,000 ounces gold indicated and 2 million tonnes grading 2.62 g/t for 151,000 ounces gold inferred. Total indicated resources are 590,000 ounces gold, and total inferred resources are 548,000 ounces gold.

President/CEO Bill Pearson spoke to Kevin Michael Grace January 18.

RW: Tell me about your latest Hope Brook results.

BP: This was a 6,000-metre program we did in November and December. Its purpose was to target six major areas we outlined along the strikelength of about 3.4 kilometres. This is the first drill program we’ve done outside the major resource area around the former mine. It tested our geological thinking and interpretation from surface mapping and geophysical work.

We did 21 holes, of which 19 hit the two major mineralized zones exactly where we predicted within metres. Two holes missed because one caved in a fault zone, and with the other the drill broke down. So, essentially, we batted 1.000.

In terms of the major targets, the big new one we came up with is this extensive near-surface target zone. It’s located about 900 metres south of the former mine, and it has a strike length of about 800 metres. It stretches over an area that we call the Connector Zone.

One thing that puzzled us was when you look at the historic drilling there was quite a bit of shallow drilling in that area that didn’t have much in it. The previous model was that the zone basically came right up to surface, and the fact that you didn’t have much mineralization in these holes meant there wasn’t much down depth, except for the 240 Zone, which was thought to be quite separate and distinct. Now we’ve discovered that the shallow historical holes didn’t have anything because there was a fold structure there, and the hinge closed about 50 metres to 75 metres below surface.

This gives us a whole new picture. Here we have a very nice extensive near-surface target, and we already have outlying quite a significant potential openpittable resource, if you look at our resource statement, and so we can expand that a lot. That was a terrific result of the program, and we also had some good success around the mine area.

So we’ve made a major leap forward because one of the misconceptions has been that everything is just around the old mine. That certainly is far from the case, and this program really sets the stage for expanding this resource beyond the mine area.