Detour Gold (T.DGC) reported some nice gold intercepts at their Detour Lake project in Ontario. Drills hit 7.88 g/t over 31 meters, and 1.33 g/t over 85 meters in the Calcite zone. This completes ’09 drilling, which totaled a whopping 101,074 meters, and the 2010 program has already drilled 32,756 meters. Management is proceeding with a feasibility study on the project due out later this quarter.

NGEx Resources (T.NGQ) reported 701 meters of 0.67% copper and 0.30 grams/tonne gold from recent drilling at their Los Helados project in Chile. Gold mineralization was found from top to bottom in all drill results and follows an earlier report of 711 meters of 0.54% copper and 0.26 g/t gold. It’s becoming clear that NGEx could be on to a major copper-gold system, and it’s still open at depth and in several directions. Management has since expanded the drill program at Los Helados, where they hold a 60% interest.

Silvercorp Metals (T & NYSE: SVM) received a positive Preliminary Assessment report on its 100% owned Silvertip project in B.C., Canada. Two scenarios were presented: a seasonally operated mine (six months/year, non-winter) that processes 500 tonnes per day, vs. a 200-tonnes-per-day mine that operates year-round. According to the PA, the seasonal mine and mill offer greater economic benefit in terms of capital return and cash flow than the year-round operation. Mine life would be longer, too, and they’d avoid the extreme cold weather and heavy snow.

Northern Dynasty Minerals (T.NDM; Amex: NAK) received an updated 43-101 Preliminary Assessment on the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in southwest Alaska. The independent report called it “one of the most important metal producers of the 21st century.” Three cases were outlined – 25, 45 and 78 years, with the 45-year “reference” case showing Pebble producing 31 billion pounds of copper, 30 million ounces of gold, 1.4 billion pounds of molybdenum, 140 million ounces of silver, 1.2 million kilograms of rhenium, and 907,000 ounces of palladium. This scenario yields a 14.2% pre-tax IRR, a 6.2-year payback on initial capital investment of $4.7 billion, and a $6.1 billion pre-tax NPV at a 7% discount rate. Northern Dynasty owns 50% of the project.