Queenston Mining in Kirkland Lake: exploration budget set for $15M in 2010.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: COMPANIES TO WATCH

With $15 million in exploration and a dozen drill rigs set to scatter across its Kirkland Lake-area properties, 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for the ever-ambitious gold-focused Queenston Mining Inc.

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More than 140,000 metres of drilling is being planned, prompting a 50 per cent spike in the exploration budget which sat at $10 million in 2009.

Company president and CEO Charlie Page expects the trend will continue, potentially reaching $20 million in 2011.

"We're pretty excited about how things are shaping up out there," says Page.

"We think the area has an awful lot of potential, and a lot of that is really starting to be realized through a lot of work that we have done and are continuing to do."

All this is to advance the company's continuing production plan in four key Kirkland Lake properties, including the Upper Beaver, the Upper Canada, Anoki and McBean.

The expectation for Charlie Page is to assemble a package of more than two-million ounces of gold to support a mill to be built at the Upper Canada site, where a tailings footprint already exists.

With a history of drilling in the camp and its extensive program through the coming year, Queenston will begin moving on pre-feasibility studies for all of its flagship properties in 2010, says Page.

More than a third of the year's drilling will take place at the Upper Beaver property, which features an indicated and measured resource of 1.4-million tonnes of 8.5 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold. Five rigs will drill roughly 50,000 metres at the site in 2010, more than double its 22,600 metre-target in 2009. Some of this will be to upgrade its resource, with additional work filling in exploration gaps.

In December, Queenston produced its first industry-compliant resource estimate for the past-producing open-pit McBean property, where 50,000 ounces of gold surfaced in a joint venture with Inco in the early 1990s. The property has indicated and measured mineral resources of 706,000 tonnes grading 4.6 g/t, and inferred resources of 1.2 million tonnes grading 4.7 g/t.

The Anoki property just 500 metres away also saw an update of its resource estimate in December. Already serviced by a ramp down to 700 feet, Anoki saw its indicated and measured resource hiked to 730,000 tonnes grading 4.7 g/t, with inferred...