Lawyers – British Columbia, Canada

APEX has consulted for Benchmark Metals Inc. (Benchmark) on the Lawyers project for over 5 years. APEX has provided full project management, logistics, drill planning, core processing, surveying, mapping, soil and rock sampling, ground based geophysics, resource modelling, report writing services, historical data compilation and database management. During this time significant evaluation of the project has been compelted and the project has expanded from <1 million oz Au equivalent to 3.5 million oz Au equivalent with a strong preliminary economic assessment.

Benchmark’s Lawyers project is located ~450 km northwest of Prince George, BC, Canada. The project occurs in the metal-endowed Stikine Terrane where magmatic events in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic were the driving source for development of mineralizing porphyry and epithermal systems. The same magmatic and mineralizing events have been recognized along the west, north and east side of the Bowser Basin, forming an arch of gold and polymetallic mineralization referred to as the Golden Horseshoe. The Lawyers project is dominated by a structurally controlled low sulphidation epithermal system in which three main deposits and several smaller peripheral prospects were identified historically. Two of these deposits, were mined in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Approximately 171, 000 oz of gold and 3.6 million oz silver were mined over a four-year period.

On Benchmark’s behalf, APEX has undertaken regional soil sampling, mapping, and rock sampling programs to better evaluate the extent of mineralization and identify new targets across the property. APEX completed extensive ground magnetics and VLF surveys totalling over 70 km² to identify subsurface structures and resistive bodies. APEX provided on the ground field crews and data processing, with weekly updated images for real time targeting. Based on the data collected during the field programs combined with the historical data 15 prospects, in addition to the three main prospects, were identified. This includes 6 new prospects. Six of these prospects have been drilled and all have returned strong grade intercepts. Six more prospects are drill ready. APEX has completed the evaluation of each of these prospects over the 5 years working on the property to get them to their drill ready or successfully drilled state.

The resource development and all resource modelling of the main deposit areas was led by APEX. This included targeted drilling and expansion based on geologic data collected during drilling. The APEX team planned the holes, executed them, logging the core and analysing the results. Structural and geological models were built using the data captured in the field. This led to new geological interpretations with multiple new trends being identified, ultimately tripling the resource over 5 years.

Geotechnical evaluation of the main deposits for mine development planning has been supported by APEX at every stage from initial complete onsite implementation to more recent support role to the contracted engineering team.

APEX has handled the logistical challenges the project has faced from the outset. This includes all the needs of a 100 person program with 6 simultaneous drills, from health and safety oversite, camp building and seasonal shutdowns, coordinating environmental monitoring and baseline work to secure shipping of samples. APEX has also provided significant support on permitting and annual reporting, ensuring that the project is compliant with the BC Mines Act and project permits.