US gold producer and explorer Fortitude Gold [OTCQB:FTCO] has announced drill results from its County Line gold project located in Mineral and Nye Counties, in Nevada. Intercepts include 10.67 meters grading 5.39 grams per tonne gold (g/t), and 7.62 meters grading 2.24 g/t gold.
Fortitude Gold also released rock chip results from the north side of its East Camp Douglas property with assays up to 36.6 g/t gold.
The drill program expanded the mineralised zone at its County Line main open pit with step-out holes to the northwest, east, and south by focusing on the periphery of the historic pit. Management said it plans to continue step-out and infill drilling at the County Line pit with a goal to expand the mineralisation and to further optimise the open pit mine plan.
Fortitude Gold also drilled County Line’s historic East Zone pit for the first time, which is located approximately 440 meters southeast of the main County Line pit. Multiple thick intervals of gold mineralisation were encountered.
The longest interval was over 88 meters in length returning 0.62 g/t gold with the highest gold grade intercept of 2.85 g/t gold over 3.05 meters. Fortitude says that future drill programs at the East Zone will target expanding the area of known mineralisation, especially in the northwesterly direction, exploring a potential connection between the East Zone and County Line main pit.
“We are excited to see thick intervals of gold mineralization continue along strike near surface at both the County Line and East Zone targets,” said Allan Turner, Vice President of Exploration for Fortitude Gold. “We are currently updating our resource model to incorporate these latest drill results and look forward to additional drill programs in the second half of 2023 to further delineate both areas of mineralisation.”
County Line’s proximity to Isabella Pearl a bonus
County Line is located approximately 26 kilometers northwest of Fortitude Gold’s operating flagship Isabella Pearl gold mine via paved Nevada State Route 361. Fortitude is targeting ore feed for its Isabella Pearl operation. The proximity of the two properties allows trucking of the ore from the County Line property to Fortitude’s Isabella Pearl Project with its existing heap leach pad and gold processing facilities.
Fortitude filed a Plan of Operations with the US Bureau of Land Management in May 2023 to advance the permitting process for County Line gold production.
“We await regulatory questions from our previously submitted County Line Plan of Operations and are excited to move the permitting process forward towards the environmental assessment stage and then final approval to enable us to begin mine construction,” explained Jason Reid, CEO and President of Fortitude Gold. “We have more drilling to do to fully delineate County Line’s mineralisation, and it’s great to see continued gold grades well over one gram; however, we are focused on advancing the project forward through the permitting process in the shortest time frame possible.”
With minimal infrastructure to build at County Line, due to leveraging of the company’s nearby processing facilities, Reid says he expects streamlined and expedited construction once he obtains final mine build approvals.
Fortitude also expects to submit a Plan of Operations for its Golden Mile project in the coming weeks, which means the company will be pushing two mine project builds forward.
