Foran Mining Corp. announced the company's winter 2013 drill program has commenced, with two drill rigs currently active on the McIlvenna Bay deposit. The company plans to drill approximately 7,000 metres, with approximately 2,000 m of drilling on the deposit, followed by a further approximately 5,000 m to test regional targets in the company's highly prospective landholdings around the deposit.

Drilling on the deposit will consist of 3 to 4 holes designed to intersect the deposit at depths of 400 to 500 m, near and below the main boundary between indicated and inferred resources. The primary objective of this drilling is to upgrade additional resources into the indicated category for potential conversion to reserves in feasibility-level work. Regional drilling will focus on testing known zones of volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineralization, as well as geophysical targets outside the immediate Deposit area on the 27,000 hectare contiguous McIlvenna Bay, Balsam and Hanson properties.

This includes the Balsam deposit, located 7 kilometressoutheast of the Deposit, on the Balsam property. Past drilling by previous operators at the Balsam deposit intersected multiple zones of massive, semi-massive and stockwork copper-zinc-gold-silver mineralization, with discovery hole BAL-11 intersecting 3.29% Cu, 3.30% Zn, 3.6 g/t Au and 32 g/t Ag over 6.5 m, starting at 84.5 m downhole. An initial mineral resource was estimated by Aur Resources in 1997.

However, this resource estimate is historic in nature and Foran has not done sufficient work to classify it as a current resource estimate; further drilling will be required to upgrade the historic resource. Surveying and reinterpretation of historic drilling by Foran in 2012 has identified areas of potential for expansion of Balsam mineralization through drilling.