FULL DISCLOSURE: This is sponsored content for Blue Jay Gold.
Blue Jay Gold (TSXV: JAY) has begun metallurgical test work on its Becker-Cochran antimony prospect, revisiting a deposit that was last studied in any serious way six decades ago.
More than 400 kilograms of stibnite-rich material has been sent to ALS Metallurgical Laboratories in Kamloops, British Columbia, where processing flowsheet testing is now underway. Results are expected in September.
The prospect sits inside the company’s 100%-owned Steller Gold Project in southern Yukon, where an antimony anomaly stretches roughly eight kilometres. The mineralization is interpreted to have formed during the same Eocene magmatic-epithermal event that produced the gold systems at Mt. Skukum.
Becker-Cochran has a long paper trail. Prospectors noted antimony showings in 1898, the occurrences were formally identified in 1906, and the Geological Survey of Canada described the unusual antimony-silver mineralization in Memoir No. 31 in 1912. Yukon Antimony Corporation Ltd. was incorporated in 1964, assembled 172 claims, and began underground work the following year.
That 1964 campaign produced the number the company keeps coming back to. The federal Department of Mines took an eight-ton bulk sample and reported flotation concentrates grading above 62% antimony at a recovery of 92.8%.
“The part of this story that gets overlooked is that somebody already tested the metallurgy,” Chief Executive Officer Geordie Mark said. “Should our work confirm and or improve on historic efforts it is fair to say that we hold a critical mineral system with a metallurgical head start, on a property where our rigs are already drilling for gold and silver.”
Antimony is classified as a critical mineral by Canada, the United States, the European Union, Australia and Japan, with uses spanning flame retardants, batteries, semiconductors and defence applications. Supply and refining capacity remain concentrated well outside Western jurisdictions.
Two rigs are currently turning at Steller as part of a program of up to 16,000 metres.
Blue Jay Gold last traded at $0.80 on the TSX Venture.
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