Osisko Metals consolidates Bathurst Mining Camp

In the last year, newly minted Osisko Metals (TSXV: OM; US-OTC: BWMXF) has picked up over 50,000 hectares in New Brunswick’s Bathurst mining camp, the third largest volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) camp in the world. “We’ve been scouring the base metal space looking for new opportunity,” Jeff Hussey, the junior’s president and CEO, told analysts and investors during a presentation at Red Cloud’s recent annual fall conference. “We’re trying to get a cluster of deposits within a 25-30 km trucking distance that would feed a central concentrator.” The company’s focus is on zinc, a base metal whose price has doubled to about US$1.43 per lb. over the last twelve months, and one which Hussey knows well after spending 20 years at Noranda, including a stint working at the Brunswick No. 12 mine in the Bathurst camp. Brunswick No. 12 was the world’s largest underground zinc mine and produced 137 million tonnes of ore grading 8.74% zinc, 3.44% lead, 0.37% copper and 102 g/t silver over the course of its 49-year lifespan. The Brunswick No. 6 mine, a pit just south of Brunswick No. 12, developed 13 million tonnes at similar grades. Osisko Metals’ 129-km² Brunswick Belt project, 25 km southwest of the city of Bathurst, covers portions of the strike length that hosted both the Brunswick No. 12 and No. 6 mines to the east, and the company believes the area warrants exploration for smaller scale, standalone operations within the brownfield Brunswick horizon geology. (Previous exploration work has been undertaken by Brunswick Mining and Smelting, Noranda, Xstrata, Glencore [LON: GLEN] and most recently Votorantim.) Continue reading at The Northern Miner.