Northern Superior Resources initiated and completed a very aggressive and successful exploration program in 2011. After raising $18.6 million in December 2010 and January 2011, the Company invested approximately $9.2 million in an exploration program focussed on discovering another marquee gold project such as our Ti-pa-haa-kaa-ning (TPK) gold property in northwestern Ontario. The results were spectacular and we identified at least seven projects on six 100% owned properties that have the potential to host a gold mine.
Seven gold projects are too many for Northern Superior to advance and therefore we will be seeking partners to advance four of these exceptional exploration opportunities (two on the Rapson Bay property, the Thorne Lake property and the New Growth property). This will allow Northern Superior to focus its human and financial resources on three exceptional properties: TPK, Croteau Est and New Growth Annex.
Rainy River Resources will be advancing the TPK Project. In a second phase of exploration, Rainy River has initiated a 7,500 m, 20–25 hole diamond drill program. Based on the positive exploration programs reported in late 2010 and in 2011, we look forward to the results from this current exploration program. Northern Superior will focus exploration on two new projects, the New Growth Annex and Croteau Est.
On the New Growth Annex gold property the Company discovered a new,mineralized greenstone belt. Coming off this belt, we defined a spectacular 3.5 km wide gold grain-in-till dispersal corridor (Keeley Lake Dispersal Corridor). In addition, we also recovered 100 large tabular, mineralized boulders associated with the greenstone belt and at the head of this gold grain dispersal corridor. Of particular interest is a boulder containing coarse visible gold, and 82 others that either assayed anomalous gold values or assayed anomalous silver and copper values. A ground geophysical survey subsequently identified several exceptional gold diamond drill targets. The Company is currently testing some of these (6-10 holes, approximately
3,000 m) with a diamond drill program.
Croteau Est has developed into the Company’s key gold exploration property. Tremendous progress has been made on this property since it was acquired in August 2011. We discovered an outcrop with visible gold and spectacular gold assays. We also encountered visible gold with impressive gold assays and intersections in the first 8 diamond drill holes completed prior to Christmas, 2011. An aggressive exploration program, including additional drilling, prospecting, bedrock and overburden mapping and sampling is now underway. We expect this exploration program to grow the size and potential of the gold-bearing shear zones already discovered and lead to the discovery of additional gold-bearing shear zones. Exploration on this property is extremely cost effective because of its location, and we will be aggressively advancing the project through 2012.
Northern Superior is well funded with $15.7 million in cash, sufficient funds to support our 2012 exploration programs and to extend them well into 2013. These funds will also continue to support our endeavours to identify additional gold exploration opportunities within regions highly prospective for gold deposits, either from our geoscientific data base or through our extensive network of prospectors and geoscientists.
We continue to excel in providing good corporate governance in all our activities, as we were recognized this past year as one of the top fifty TSX-V companies in 2011 and awarded the Ontario Business Achievement Award for Corporate Governance by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.
2011 was an exceptional year and set the foundation for an even more exciting 2012. Staff and management are eagerly engaged in advancing our key projects and are looking forward to presenting the results to our shareholders as the year unfolds. We encourage all our shareholders to follow our progress through press release and quarterly updates on our website, www.nsuperior.com.
Sincerely,
Thomas F. Morris, PhD., FGAC, PGeo.
President & CEO
Northern Superior Resources Inc.