Red Pine Exploration significantly improved its mineral resources compared to estimates from five years ago for the Wawa gold project in Ontario, Canada. 

The Canadian junior released an updated mineral resource estimate, including open pit and underground mineral resources, with an indicated mineral resource of 14.7Mt grading 1.8gpt containing 842,000oz of gold and an inferred mineral resource of 16.2Mt grading 1.6gpt containing 843,000oz of gold.

"We are thrilled to see this increase of approximately 150% in total ounces of gold in the updated MRE. This significant increase validates the approximately 65,000m of strategic exploration drilling completed over the past several years," chief executive Michael Michaud said.

The 2019 resource estimate for an underground mining scenario reported an indicated resource of 1.2Mt at 5.31gpt for 205,000oz of gold and an inferred resource of 2.4Mt at 5.22gpt for 396,000oz of gold.

"The updated MRE not only shows a material increase in the size of the deposit, but it also significantly increases our confidence in the data and the quality of the deposit and reinforces our vision for a potential high-quality open pit and sizeable higher-grade underground mine," Michaud added.

The company said the continuous gold mineralisation starting from the surface and extending up to 1,200m down dip provides potential open pit and underground mine development options.

"There also remain numerous exploration targets across the Wawa gold project property that remain untested," Michaud said.

"We plan to include a portion of future drilling programs to test new targets with the intention of making new discoveries to further demonstrate the Wawa gold project property's mineral wealth."

Red Pine will focus its exploration on high-grade mineralisation in the near term, specifically the down dip and down plunge extensions of the Jubilee and Minto deposits.

In the hanging wall of the Jubilee Shear and its northern extension, there is potential for expansion of lower-grade mineralisation. 

Red Pine was shaken by an assay result tampering scandal earlier this year when it was revealed that its former chief executive had manipulated results to increase grades.

The explorer's share price dropped over 60% after it shared the inconsistencies with the market on May 1, and it is still recovering from the price fall. The company trades at around C$0.12 and has a market cap of C$21.09 million.