What happened? First hole of Phase 2 drilling hit a "massive" graphite intercept over 70 meters close to surface.
So what? Berkwood may be onto the type of deposit that was the driving force for Mason's exploration success at the GC Zone.
What next? Drilling to be completed by December 19th, then assays to help understand if Zone 1 could be a company-maker for Berkwood.
Mason Graphite (TSXV:LLG) is a success story in the junior markets. They currently have a +$200 million market cap and a positive feasibility study for their flagship Lac Gueret Graphite Project in Quebec. The economics were a big win off only 7% of their Measured & Indicated mineral resource. They have enough ore for something like 200 years of mining activity, which is stunning. It is great to have so much potential ore, but they rightly focus on the part of the deposit with the highest grades. They have 9 million tonnes of ore above 25% Cg in M&I, while the 25-year project they describe in their FS uses only 4.7 million tonnes of ore.
The good news is that part of the high-grade section of the deposit is localized to a near-surface area that they call the GC Zone. Their corporate presentation mentions that they have done ca. 43,324 meters of drilling at the GC Zone. Wow. Their website also states: "Graphite mineralization at the GC Zone has been mapped on strike up to 1.2 kilometers and at width up to 400 meters." That's a big area that they drilled-off in beautiful grid, but it is just one of the areas that was explored over a decade of fairly steady activity driven by Mr. Ed Lyons.
Imagine if they had a do-over.
I suspect that they would stick to the GC Zone with everything we know now, but that's not really fair. They had to explore the project in a comprehensive fashion because little was known about it at the time. They were doing grassroots exploration. Berkwood Resources (TSXV:BKR), however, can start with all the information that was generated by Mason's exploration activities and has made a great choice by putting Mr. Lyons into the drivers' seat on their exploration program at Lac Gueret South.
Now that Berkwood is finding long, juicy intercepts at Zone 1, I hope they focus on it. Drilling at Zone 2 was stopped because they weren't getting good results but assays from Phase 1 at Zone 1 were encouraging. If the results from Phase 2 at Zone 1 suggest that Berkwood is onto something like the GC Zone, then they stand to benefit quickly from all the hard work Mason has put into exploration. I hope Berkwood can benefit from Mason's success with permitting and marketing, too. There is a long road ahead for Berkwood, but it might just be paved by the time they get ready to drive it!
