It's been four weeks since Probe Mines (PRB) sent the last samples of the core to Activation Labs in Thunder Bay. The chromite horizon has been intersected in four drill holes, representing a strike length of 100m, to a vertical depth of 186m, and is open in all directions. The thicknesses of the intersections range between 29.1m and 56.6m (approximately 25m to 47m true thickness). Result are to be released shortly. Chromite is typically found in high grades (20 - 40%), so we can reasonably expect good assay results. The initial drilling costs are covered by recent rising of WTM sp and I confirmed an initial $0.5 million exploration budget was allocated by Noront.

PROBE JOINT VENTURE AGREEMENT (Noront MD&A Document)
On May 19, 2009, the Company entered into a Joint Venture Agreement with Probe Mines Limited (“Probe”) covering 87 claims approximately 8 kilometres northeast of the Eagle One Deposit. Under the terms of the joint venture the Company has been granted a 50% interest in the property and is responsible for its proportionate share of expenditures. Probe is the operator and the exploration program and budget is required to be approved by the Company. An initial $0.5 million exploration budget was approved by the Company with Noront’s share being 50%. The objective of the drilling program is to test a projected chromotite horizon.

Dave must have held Technical Committee meetings with Noront in the past three weeks and I expect the second phase of the summer drilling program will be announced shortly after unveiling the assay results. Because of extremely high MMI readings in one of jv properties (450 meters north/west of Eagle 1), the second phase of the drilling program might include a deep down drilling in that propertity.

WTM (West Timmins) indicated a drill program that is targeted for late summer or early fall 2009 to earn 55% interest in the Bristol Township Project by completing $1,000,000 in exploration expenditures and making cash and share payments over a 4-year period ending in June 2010. Recently, the Rusk Zone intersection represented one of the broadest intercepts reported from the West Timmins camp grading 12.75 g/t gold over an extraordinary 83.4m. WTM sp shot up from $.45 in end of March to $2.37 as of last Friday.

Currently, sp moves side ways (profit taking & consolidation) in the absence of news releases, but ROF will heat it up again very soon. PRB might be the the first one that will lead to the fireworks in the coming weeks.