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Wesdome Increases Eagle River Underground Mine Mineral Reserves

Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd. announces increased Mineral Reserves at its operating Eagle River Underground Mine located west of Wawa, Ontario. Mineral Reserves and Resources are updated as at December 31, 2017.

Through a tightly spaced drilling program to define, Duncan Middlemiss, President and CEO commented, “In 2017, we successfully increased reserves net of depletion, and significantly improved the grade and reliability of our reserves through more tightly spaced definition drilling (35,000 metres). In January of last year, we made a very exciting new discovery within the 300 Parallel Zone – the 303 Lens, which so far consists of an average width of 8.2 metres grading 29.67 g/ tonne uncut. In May, we completed an exploration drift on the 844 metre Level, which enabled us to drill the structure up-plunge and is now traced from 750 metres depth to 1,000 metres depth and remains open above and below. As a result of this new discovery, the grade in the 300 Zone reserve increased by 49% over 2016. Production from this area began in late 2017. We also focused exploration efforts on the 7 Zone, increasing the grade by 44% and setting up production for 2018 to be in an area of longer strike lengths and greater widths than previously mined. Overall, the incorporation of these more recently discovered, higher grade zones into the current reserves has resulted in more ounces of gold in fewer tonnes thus improving the overall economics of the mine.”

New development of 380 metres is underway to provide drill platforms for the planned 25,000 metres of exploration drilling and 25,000 metres of definition drilling to better define and expand the reserves at these zones.

Middlemiss explained, “To date, the new parallel structures, namely Zones 300 and 7, have only been tested in the west end of the mine at depth.  The Company is planning an additional 5,000 metre surface drilling program to explore for additional Zones along these structures within the relatively untested areas of the eastern 2.0 km portion of the mine diorite. Exploration targeting is being aided with the creation of a comprehensive 3D geologic model that incorporates all recent and historic information to identify potential gold bearing structures and possible traps for gold along these structures.”

In addition, data compilation is underway from approximately 30,000 metres of drilling conducted last year to the west of the Mishi open pit and expect to update reserves and resources for both this recent area of drilling and the immediate open pit area later in the year.

Brenda Stockton
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