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48 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 9 MINING OSISKO METALS building a Canadian zinc powerhouse by Ellsworth Dickson T otally unlike its predecessor company, Bowmore Exploration, the re-born Osisko Metals Inc. [OM-TSXV; OB51- FSE] (June 2017) is completely focused on zinc projects. And for good reason – there is already a zinc supply crunch impacting global zinc inventories. With these circumstances in mind, management has gained control of the top two Canadian zinc mining camps: the Pine Point Mining Camp in the Northwest Territories and the Bathurst Mining Camp in northern New Brunswick. In addition, the company also owns 12 grassroots zinc targets, that will be selectively explored in 2019. Located just south of Great Slave Lake, the 100%-owned Pine Point Project recently released an independent mineral resource estimate (MRE) that incorporates a low-cost open pit mining scenario. The majority of zinc mines are underground operations. Pine Point is the only pure play, high-grade, near-surface project among zinc development peers. The Pine Point pit-constrained, Inferred MRE stands at 38.4 million tonnes grad - ing 4.58% zinc and 1.85% lead (6.43% ZnEq) containing approximately 3.9 bil- lion pounds of zinc and 1.6 billion pounds of lead. Pine Point's main core (East Mill, Central and North Zones) contains approx- imately 23.4 million tonnes grading 6.30% ZnEq or 2.3 billion pounds of zinc and 0.9 billion pounds of lead. The pit constrained resource is based on optimized pit shells using a zinc price of US $1.10/lb and a lead price of US $0.90/lb. The pit-constrained resources are actu - ally divided into five zones representing 42 new pits and two historical pits. The Pine Point deposit is a Mississippi Valley type deposit. The original zinc mine was in produc- tion from 1964 to 1988 and produced approximately 2 million tons of lead and 7 million tons of zinc in concentrates. When the mine closed, the town of Pine Point was abandoned and demolished and the rail spur to the outside world was removed. However, the project is only 60 km from the Hay River CN rail head, hydro power and there is a paved highway to the project. An infill drilling program is in progress and a substantial exploration program will commence in mid-2019 to test the excel - lent brownfield mineral potential along the entire 65-km Pine Point trend. A new MRE is planned for later in 2019 with the objective of converting a significant proportion of current resources to the Indicated category. In late 2018, Osisko Metals reported