Balmoral’s Area 51 Gold System I.P. Program Commences, Detour Gold Trend Project, Quebec

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 16, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Balmoral Resources Ltd. (“Balmoral” or the “Company”) (TSX: BAR; OTCQX: BALMF) announces that it has commenced its largest ground geophysical survey in over four years, targeting the Area 51 gold system on its wholly-owned Fenelon Property in Quebec. The Fenelon Property forms part of the Company’s district-scale Detour Gold Trend Project in Quebec.

Balmoral’s Detour Gold Trend Project adjoins the holdings of Detour Gold Corp. - the subject of a pending $4.5+ billion takeover offer^* - on its western end, controls the largely untested extensions of the rapidly expanding Area 51 gold system (see Figure 1), and features Balmoral’s wholly-owned, resource-stage Martiniere gold and Grasset nickel deposits.

Area 51 – Fenelon Induced Polarity Survey

The I.P. survey currently underway on Balmoral’s Fenelon Property will provide first-pass coverage of the untested Area 50 and Area 51 West exploration targets. It will also add to the existing I.P. coverage of the Area 52 target (see Figure 1). The latter target area has been confirmed to host both the southern continuation of the Area 51 gold system (see NR19-17, Sept. 16, 2019) and Balmoral’s recent high-grade Ripley Zone gold discovery (see NR19-26, Dec. 4, 2019). 

In total Balmoral plans to complete a minimum of 46 line kilometres of surveying. Results from the initial phase of I.P. work in Area 52 proved effective for targeting both A51 style sulphide-rich and more “classic” shear zone hosted gold mineralization, as evidenced by the Ripley discovery.

Several I.P. targets remain untested from the first-pass survey at Area 52, and these have been permitted for drilling. Permitting will continue as results are received from the current program with the goal of having drill targets permitted and prioritized shortly after the surveying is completed. Commencement of drill testing would then be planned for early in the first quarter of 2020 and would carry on through the winter months with the full extent of the drill program to be determined by results.

To date well over 500 drill holes have been drilled testing the Fenelon-Area 51 gold system on the adjacent Fenelon Mine Property. Only 16 drill holes have tested the three target areas on Balmoral’s much larger Fenelon property, with 14 of the 16 holes having returned gold mineralization.

“We have only just begun to scratch the surface on the potential of the Area 51 gold system at Fenelon,” said Darin Wagner, President and CEO of Balmoral Resources “With geophysical surveying underway, data arriving daily, funds in place, and drilling set to commence in the next few weeks we are looking to continue to build on the positive momentum along the Detour Gold Trend.”