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Ximen Mining busily advancing plans to get the most from its British Columbia assets

Published: 07:00 21 Feb 2020 EST

Snapshot

The firm has an acquisition option on the Kenville gold mine, which reportedly produced 65,236 ounces of gold, and 27,686 ounces of silver intermittently between 1889 and 1956

Ximen Mining Corp -
  • Positioned to be British Columbia's next significant gold miner
  • Preparing for drilling at historic Kenville mine project
  • Will assess further potential acquisitions/mergers

What Ximen Mining does:

Ximen Mining Corp (CVE:XIM) (OTCMKTS:XXMMF) is a precious metals explorer with several assets in southern British Columbia (BC).

The firm has an acquisition option on the Kenville gold mine, which produced 65,236 ounces of gold, and 27,686 ounces of silver intermittently between 1889 and 1956.

Kenville was formerly known as the Granite-Poorman mine and lies 7 kilometres (km) west of the town of Nelson in the West Kootenay region of BC. Ximen wants to exploit the vein structures to bring it back to life and establish a high-grade, 20-year, producing gold mine, while concurrently exploring the limits of the reserve.

The group also owns its flagship Brett epithermal gold project, where it has controlled 20,025 hectares since 2013, and where previous drilling has thrown up 168 grams per ton (g/t) of gold over 1.3 metres (m) and where visible gold is common. In 2019, Ximen applied for underground permitting to conduct diamond drilling to further define the main zone and explore parallel zones. This work is expected to begin in 2020.

Ximen also owns the Treasure Mountain silver project, which is adjacent to the past-producing Huldra Silver mine. It is currently optioned to New Destiny Mining Corp (CVE:NED) for staged cash and stock payments. Treasure Mountain boasts multiple mineralization types, including polymetallic veins, gold-bearing quartz veins, and porphyry and porphyry-related mineralization.

The firm also boasts the historic Cariboo-Amelia gold mine in Camp McKinney. The mine was British Columbia’s first dividend-paying lode gold mine and recovery included 81,602 ounces of gold, 32,439 ounces of silver, 113,302 pounds of lead and 198,140 pounds of zinc. Ximen is planning geochemical and geophysical surveys followed by diamond drilling at Amelia this year.

Late last year, Ximen sold its Gold Drop Property option to GGX Gold Corp (CVE:GGX). In September, GGX said it had paid Ximen a final payment of 600,000 shares valued at C$150,000 and a C$100,000 in cash, which along with meeting the required exploration expenditures completed its obligations to earn a 100% interest in Gold Drop.

The property lies in one of the most prolific mining camps in Canada - the Greenwood camp - which has generated 1.4 million ounces of gold, 10 million ounces silver and 0.7 billion pounds of copper. Ximen still holds onto a 2.5% net smelter return royalty (NSR) on the property which GGX can buy down 1% of by paying C$1 million.

In January this year, Ximen revealed it had expanded its ground in both the Nelson (near the Kenville gold mine) and Greenwood areas (near the historic Caribou-Amelia gold mine) with the acquisition of new claims.

On February 20 this year, the firm revealed it was set to buy four new properties in British Columbia from Klondike Gold, including the Ron gold (Nelson) property, which adjoins the Kenville gold mine. The other three Klondike properties it will buy are the Hughes Range property, the Clubine property and the Quartz mountain property. The latter two are past producers.

How is it doing:

It already looks set to be a busy 2020. In January, Ximen hired Laurentian Bank Securities as strategic financial advisors and to assist it to source capital and evaluate potential merger and acquisition opportunities.

It has also outlined its plans to carry out a bulk sample this year from the Kenville gold mine and undertake diamond drilling at the Brett property. At the former, Ximen said it wants to develop a new 1,200-metre decline and do underground drilling. Once this is underway, it will extract a bulk sample for offsite processing.

This year has also seen more drill results from the Treasure Mountain Silver project. Four diamond drill holes, for 102 metres, were completed at the Lucky Todd copper-gold prospect and assays included elevated copper and molybdenum values. Among notable highlights, one hole housed an interval (from 4.51m depth) of 833 parts per million (ppm) copper, 1.55 ppm silver and 0.05 ppm gold.

The Superior/Lucky Todd and Railroad mineralization is interpreted to be a porphyry-style, copper-molybdenum plus/minus gold/silver and related peripheral veins and further exploration work is needed to find the centre of the mineralized system, Ximen has said.

Meanwhile, on February 13, the firm said it had drawn down on its equity financing facility with Alumina Partners to the tune of C$150,000 - the second time the firm has drawn down that amount in the year.

Inflection points:

  • Bulk sample start at Kenville
  • Drilling start at Brett 
  • More exploration catalysts across the Ximen portfolio
  • Potential new deals

What the boss says:

Last November, Ximen chief executive and President Christopher Anderson outlined the group's plans for the Kenville mine, along with its environmentally-friendly credentials. The firm aims to make the project clean, green and small.

"Our target is to develop the mine to extract 125 tonnes per day of material grading 15 grams per tonne (1/2 ounce per ton) gold," he said in a statement..

"The initial step is to develop the new access decline. During that development, underground diamond drilling will in-fill areas where surface drilling has already intersected significant gold in quartz veins. Potential mining blocks can then be defined. The aim is to first develop and produce a bulk sample and then, assuming success, proceed into full mine development."

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