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Show " Additional Tonfo rig goes to Pino Grove Tonto Drilling Company, a Canadian firm, moved another an-other core drilling rig into Pine Crove last week to begin drilling for Pine Grove Associates. Tonto is located at Kam -loops, British Columbia, and the rig has been expected for some time. It's the second Tonto rig to V employed on the property under exploration explor-ation by Pine Grove Associ- Oates, a joint venture company of Getty Oil and Phelps Dodge. The company is still in the first phase of an exploratory operation on a molybdenum discovery announced by Phelps Dodge in December 1977. The exploratory phase Is expected to last until October 1979. The second Tonto rig joins several Boyle's Brothers drilling rigs that have been on the site since last sum -mer. The molybdenum discovery dis-covery is a porphry deposit discovered at the 2-6000 foot level and if exploration by the joint venture company proves ouf they expect to move into the second phase of blocking out the ore late in 1979. Preliminary plans call for an underground mine oper-' oper-' ation that would employ be tween 1000 and 1500 persons per-sons permanently, with additional ad-ditional employment possible pos-sible depending upon several variables. Presently, there are between be-tween 60 and 80 men camped at Pine Grove in trailers, with a joint commissary and recreational facility, working work-ing for the two drilling outfits. out-fits. Because of the depth of the ore body, it is expected that if deemed commercially feasible to mine, a horizontal horizon-tal shaft will be driven beneath be-neath the ore body, and it will be mined from the bottom bot-tom up. Tight security on the exploration ex-ploration phase has kept the COUNTY NEWS fpm receiving re-ceiving any evaluation on the progress to date. However, the addition of the new Tonto rig is an indication that Pine Grove' Associates is encouraged en-couraged enough to continue the first phase. Local information, which Is very scarce, Indicates that drilling has produced signs of other valuable ore besides the molybdenum. Besides tha patented-claims patented-claims the original discovery dis-covery was made on, the companies have filed over 900 additional claims in the immediate vicinity. |