Panama Gold Project: Sold to Renegade Gold Inc. (TSXV: RAGE)
On December 1, 2023, Benton was been notified that Renegade Gold will issue common shares to the Company in satisfaction of its obligation to make a cash payment of $300,000 pursuant to the terms of the Option Agreement whereby the Renegade had the right to acquire the remaining 30% interest (for a total interest of 100%) in the Panama Lake Property (see Renegade’s news releases dated July 13, 2022 and November 4, 2022). Renegade will issue Benton a total of 769,230 common shares at a deemed price of $0.39 per Common Share in lieu of paying $300,000, as payment for the Third Option as defined in an option agreement dated October 22, 2019 in respect of the Panama Lake Property.
Benton will retain a 2% Net Smelter Royalty on the project.
The Panama Lake Gold project is hosted in the Red Lake Mining District, 55 km northeast of the town of Ear Falls, and is road accessible. Historical exploration on the claims is minimal and mainly focused on the Panama Zone. This zone was drilled by Noranda Exploration Ltd. in 1988, where 8 widely spaced diamond drill holes over a 1.4 km strike length yielded results of up to 2.8 g/t Au over 4.5 m within a 20-30 m wide mineralized shear zone. The Panama Zone is one of the main exploration targets on the property.
Of additional interest is a regional glacial till sampling survey (Geological Survey of Canada, 1999 – Open File 3038) that collected a sample on the Panama Lake claims, which contained 107 gold grains, the highest count in the survey which covered the Red Lake mine trend that has produced over 25M ounces of gold. The grains were pristine in nature which provides evidence that their bedrock source is not far from the sample location on the Slate Lake Zone.
In light of Great Bear Resources Ltd.’s new discovery in the Red Lake district (see Great Bear’s press release dated August 22, 2018), Benton spent the majority of 2019 focused on the Panama Project. Benton increased the size of the property (now 7,000 hectares) by staking the ground immediately west of the Panama Zone, formerly Goldcorp’s Ben Lake Project. Goldcorp allowed their Ben Lake claims to lapse when their regional exploration strategy was cut back, and Benton used the work performed by Goldcorp to explore the Ben Lake Zone.
Sporadic prospecting and geochemical work through the fall of 2018 led to the initiation of a 1,420 m diamond drill program completed in Feb/March of 2019. Seven holes were completed at the Panama Zone and were designed to infill Noranda’s 1988 drilling as well as test the grade at depth. The Panama Zone drilling successfully intersected the mineralized quartz flooded shear zone and has provided Benton with a better understanding of the structural controls and lithological units hosting gold mineralization. Two additional holes were completed at the Slate Lake Zone targeting an arsenopyrite-rich meta-sediment where Benton had prospecting samples up to 6.17 g/t gold. The drilling successfully intersected the mineralized unit at depth, as well as outlined a weakly mineralized porphyry to the south of this prospective zone. While the gold grades in the drill results at Slate Lake were not consistent with the 6.17 g/t gold surface sampling, the geological information will be used to determine the source of the gold grains in till.
A High-Resolution Heliborne Magnetic Survey over the entire Panama Project also shows favourable high-priority targets.
The proximity to the Red Lake Camp, adjacent Great Bear Resources discovery, regional-scale structures and mineralized lithologies are all important ingredients to finding a gold deposit on the highly prospective Panama Lake Project.
Highlights of the drilling are included in the table below.
