Gold miner Fortitude Gold (OTCQB:FTCO) has announced resource definition and expansion results from its ongoing drill campaign at its Golden Mile property in Nevada. High-grade intercepts include 7.62 meters grading 18.22 grams per tonne (g/t) gold within 38.10 meters grading 4.60 g/t gold.
The latest drill results including 38 meters of 4.60 grams per tonne gold which underscore the high-grade gold present at the project. In addition, intercepting over 18 meters of 1.24 grams per tonne gold approximately 100 meters outside the currently defined resource area speaks to the potential to expand mineralization.
Where is the Golden Mile property located?
The Golden Mile property is located in the Bell Mining District, Mineral County, Nevada, approximately 23 miles east-southeast of Fortitude’s producing Isabella Pearl mine. The property covers 11,811 acres consisting of 599 unpatented claims, 5 patented claims, 4 owned and 1 leased. Mineralization at the property is intrusion related, with primary gold and copper mineralization associated with skarn style replacement in carbonate units.
Fortitude Gold is distinguished within the gold mining sector in the US for its low operating costs, high margins, and the strong returns it delivers on capital. It is debt free and aims to distribute substantial dividends to its investors. Many non-mining investors are known to own shares purely because of the relatively high dividends they pay.
The company already has the Isabella Pearl gold mine, sited on the Isabella Pearl mineralised trend, in which it owns a 100% interest. It is an open-pit heap leach project which first produced gold in April 2019, just over 10 months from the initial project ground breaking.
Final assay results expected by end of Q2
Fortitude Gold released an initial mineral resource for its Golden Mile property in November 2021, which included 78,500 ounces at a 1.13 g/t gold grade in the indicated category, and 84,500 ounces at a 1.10 g/t gold grade in the inferred category. A fifty-three hole reverse circulation delineation drill program was initiated during the first quarter of 2022 in preparation for upgrading and converting indicated and inferred resources into an initial probable reserve.
“This drill program has focused on infill and step-down targets with final assay results expected by the end of the second quarter,” explained Barry Devlin, Vice President for Exploration at Fortitude Gold. “Once these delineation assays are received and incorporated into our resource model, we will begin working on our prefeasibility study for the Golden Mile resource, with a goal of completion by the end of 2022.”
Fortitude said that it team has worked diligently over the past year on project engineering, open-pit design, metallurgical heap leach test work as well as initiating the project permitting process.
“We are optimistic these and future drill results will add gold ounces to this project’s first reserve estimate, but we are positioning to make a development decision based on our current initial resource estimate and are moving forward as such,” said Jason Reid, CEO and President of Fortitude Gold.
He said that there are only a few due diligence items remaining to make an internal decision to develop Golden Mile, and that “these recent high-grade gold drill results add excitement to the growing potential of Fortitude Gold’s second open-pit heap leach gold mine in Nevada.”
