Kiena High Grade Zones Near Underground Infrastructure And At Surface

TORONTO - Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd. President and CEO, Duncan Middlemiss, said, “We are pleased with the recent underground exploration drilling that continues to define the high grade Footwall Zone, which already extends over 300 meters down plunge. This new discovery could have major positive impacts on the project as the underground infrastructure utilized to access the A Zones would only incrementally be added to for the potential mining of the Footwall Zones. It is our goal to include this zone in the updated mineral resource estimate at year end. We are also pleased with initial surface exploration results which could potentially increase our resource base in areas proximal to the mine. These results also illustrate the excellent potential to find new discoveries on our large, and hugely underexplored property. The fact we have mineralization in a similar orientation as the A Zones in the Bourgo Zone is notable. Any near mine resource has the potential to add additional mill feed and place less strain with increased flexibility on mine production. Drilling has been impacted by a very competitive market, and we are working with our drilling contractors to mitigate the shortage of drillers in the area and hope to increase drilling rates going forward.

Also, we are pleased with the progress being made ramping up production at Kiena Deep Zone, in Val d'Or, Quebec. The first stope from the Kiena Deep A Zone is now in production as per plan and will be processed soon at the Kiena mill, which has been processing ore from the S-50 zone since mid-July. We are satisfied with the advancement of the project so far and will provide updates accordingly.”

The Footwall Zone is interpreted as lenses of gold mineralization located within a 50 meter (‘m’) wide corridor adjacent to the footwall of the A2 Zone. Gold mineralization is associated with quartz ± visible gold veins that are spatially associated with amphibolite altered komatiite, basaltic komatiite and basalt units.

Because the recent drilling has been impacted by the industry wide shortage of skilled drillers, 11 holes and their wedges having reached the Footwall and A Zones. As such, additional drilling is still required to determine the geometry of the mineralized lenses forming the corridor of the Footwall Zone. The orientation, dip and geometry of these new lenses will need to be confirmed in order to determine true widths. However, it is interpreted that the Footwall zone runs parallel to the A Zone and extends at least 300 m. Mineralization remains open laterally and down plunge.

Previous drilling at the Presqu’ile zones has defined a small near surface mineral resource. Eleven of the reported holes for this zone intersected gold mineralization and helped to define a steeply east-plunging trend. Future drilling will continue to test the extent of the mineralization which is near to an underground access at a vertical depth of 320 m below surface and approximately 450 m to the north. The drilling in the Shawkey area was following up on gold anomalies in historical holes and exploring untested areas along strike. Eight holes intersected a new zone called Bourgo which is perpendicular to the general northwest-southeast trend. It consists of quartz veins with very low sulphide content hosted in a komatiitic basalt unit. The northern orientation is similar to the orientation of the nearby Kiena Deep A Zones. Drilling is planned to improve the understanding of this area.