Resource World Magazine

28 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 4 MINING The city of Rouyn Noranda is a sleepy little town of 41,000 on the shores of Lake Osisko in northwestern Quebec. The town traces its roots to the discovery of copper in 1917 and the building of the Horne Mine in 1926. The success of the Horne Mine launched not only the town but also what would become mining giant Noranda and put Quebec on the map as a global destination for mining. The region owes its reputation as a world min - ing mecca to its proximity to many volcanic massive sulphide deposits that are perhaps some of the most widely studied geological anomalies. The Horne Mine and Noranda created a fortune and the company became a global powerhouse that opened copper mines all over the world. Despite the Horne's hefty pedigree, the mine was closed in 1976 after producing 54 million tons at 2.2% copper. A less discussed part of the Horne's history is that during its life it also produced over 12 million ounces of gold. With the price of gold hovering around US $1,240/oz today, it is difficult to imagine a time when the 6.1 g/t gold produced at Horne was merely a round - ing error on the balance sheet of Noranda. During its spectacular life, the Horne Mine rarely saw gold above US $50/oz. Gold was very prevalent but not coveted and was never a focus of exploration on the site. When Falco Pacific Resource Group Inc. [FPC-TSXV], a Vancouver-based exploration company, acquired the mineral rights to the Horne Mine in summer 2012, it marked the only time that anyone, other than Noranda, would explore the mighty Horne Mine - a time span of over 80 years. The plan was simple: raise money from investors to aggres - sively drill the Horne Mine and surrounding ground with a focus on finding a minable gold resource. This approach seemed logical to Falco Pacific management and had a high probability of success given the Horne's pro- lific, yet under-appreciated golden history. The management of Falco Pacific had one not so small problem. During the summer of 2012, junior exploration companies were trapped in one of the most bearish markets in memory. "We raised the capital to make the acquisi - tion of the asset; however, we had very little money to drill it," said Kelly Klatik, Falco Pacific's CEO. Klatik, along with his team headed by Dr. Mike Byron, Falco's VP of Exploration, had a plan that they hoped would help them get a focus on exploring the property. In addition to the mineral rights on the property, Falco had also acquired a valuable data base that Noranda had compiled for the site. Most of the drilling that had been done on the site predated the digital age and, therefore, con - sisted of a very large underground fireproof room stacked to the ceiling with bankers boxes full of drill logs, feasibility reports and underground level plans. "Basically, if it happened on site between 1926 and 2000, it was recorded and put in the data vault," said Dr. Byron. What started as a desperate attempt of a tiny under-financed company to gain their bearings at Horne soon became a remark - able opportunity to unlock billions of dollars in gold. The data that sat untouched for 80 years was remarkably complete and incred- ibly thorough. The company came upon a document that outlined an historic resource in the Horne 5 Zone that sat just below and west of the original mine. The resource was 167 million tonnes grading 1.25 g/t gold. To Falco Pacific management, the revela - tion that there was this type of previously discovered, but long since forgotten, infor- mation was nothing short of mind boggling. To further the love affair between the team at Falco and its newly rediscovered Horne 5 Zone was the fact that while Noranda was exploring it, they constructed some 5 km of underground infrastructure that would cost approximately $200 million in today's money. The work to bring the Horne 5 historic resource into modern day compliance began in June 2013 and the work moved quickly and the amount of data processed was Looking toward the Horne smelter complex at Rouyn Noranda, Quebec from the Falco Pacific ground to the north. Photo courtesy Falco Pacific Resource Group Inc. Technology and ghost of Noranda team up to create modern day Quebec gold rush Falco Pacific Resource Group Inc. By Dean Linden

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