White Gold Corp. (TSX.V: WGO, OTC – Nasdaq Intl: WHGOF, FRA: 29W) (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has commenced its 2019 diamond drill program on two of its highest priority properties: the JP Ross and White Gold properties. The diamond drill program is a central component of the Company’s $13 million fully funded 2019 exploration program backed by partners Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (TSX: AEM, NYSE: AEM) and Kinross Gold Corp (TSX: K, NYSE: KGC).
Highlights Include:
- 10,000m of diamond drilling on the JP Ross property focused on the Vertigo target. The 2019 diamond drill program will focus on evaluating the geometry as well as the lateral and vertical continuity of the high-grade mineralized structures discovered in 2018.
- The Vertigo program represents initial diamond drill testing of the Vertigo discovery which produced several high-grade, near surface Reverse Circulation (“RC”) drill intercepts in 2018 including 22.47 g/t Au over 30.46m from surface, as well as high-grade grab samples including 304.3 g/t, 156.2 g/t, 139.9 g/t, 135.6 g/t and 132.9g/t Au.
- 6,000m of diamond drilling on the White Gold property focused on the Golden Saddle, GS West and Arc deposits.
- The program will focus on expansion of current deposits which include an Indicated Mineral Resource of 1,039,600 oz Au within 14,330,000 tonnes at 2.26 g/t gold and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 508,700 oz Au within 10,696,000 tonnes at 1.48 g/t gold.
- 1,000m of diamond drilling on the VG Deposit which hosts a historic Inferred Resource of 230,000 oz Au.
Images to accompany this news release can be found at http://whitegoldcorp.ca/investors/exploration-highlights/.
“We are very excited to have initiated our 2019 diamond drilling program on some of our highest priority targets, including the Vertigo, White Gold and VG to follow up on our success in 2018,” stated David D’Onofrio, Chief Executive Officer. “The goal of this diamond drill program is threefold: to continue to expand Golden Saddle/Arc’s established resources, to follow up on JP Ross’s exciting high grade Vertigo discovery last season and to grow the recently acquired and underexplored VG Deposit. We have also commenced the regional exploration program across our extensive land package, focused on generating a strong pipeline of discoveries and resource growth.”
JP Ross Property – Vertigo Target
A Phase 1 program consisting of 10,000m of diamond drilling on the Vertigo target will focus on defining the geometry of mineralized structures along trend, and evaluating the lateral and vertical continuity of the mineralization. This includes evaluation of the target across the currently defined width of the zone and up to 500m of strike length along the core of the system.
The Vertigo target on the JP Ross property is comprised of 2,850 quartz claims covering over 57,000 hectares with at least 14 defined target areas and numerous placer gold bearing creeks. Previously announced drill results on the Vertigo target range from trace to 22.47 g/t Au over 30.46m from surface (JPRVERRAB18-014/JPRVERRC18-013), 56.25 g/t Au over 3.05m from 3.05m depth, within a broader intercept of 17.34 g/t Au over 10.67m, (JPRVERRAB18-001) and 45.00 g/t Au over 3.05m from 1.52m depth, within a broader intercept of 9.65 g/t Au over 15.24m (JPRVERRAB18-011). Additional exploration in the area also encountered multiple high-grade grab samples including 304.3 g/t, 156.2 g/t, 139.9 g/t, 135.6 g/t and 132.9g/t Au, defining a strike length of approximately 2.2km on the Vertigo target along a larger 18km mineralized trend. The Vertigo Target is located approximately 25km north of the Company’s flagship White Gold property and is within 2km of an existing road accessible from Dawson City.
To date, at least 12 mineralized structures are recognized on the Vertigo target over a 2,200m x 650m area, and consist of W-NW trending, steeply dipping zones of quartz veining, brecciation, and fracture-controlled mineralization with disseminated to vein-controlled pyrite-arsenopyrite-galena and locally, visible gold mineralization.
White Gold Property – Golden Saddle/GS West and Arc
A Phase 1 program consisting of 6,000m of diamond drilling is planned for the Golden Saddle and Arc deposits. At the Golden Saddle, drilling will focus on expansion of the GS West zone, both along strike and down-dip. Limited historic drilling has occurred between the GS West and the GS Main and one of the Company’s key objectives for the 2019 season will be to expand this zone and explore the potential continuity between the two zones. Drilling will also be conducted on the GS Main and GS Footwall and will focus on infilling gaps in the current model; particularly the high-grade core. Included in this high-grade core is 525,600 gold ounces at a grade of 4.68 g/t gold in the Indicated category and 81,900 gold ounces at a grade of 4.74 g/t gold Inferred using a >3 g/t cut-off. Drilling activity on the Arc will focus on expansion of the deposit along strike, and targeted infill drilling to evaluate continuity on higher grade (>2g/t Au) areas within the model. Numerous other targets are known on the property and additional drilling may be conducted in these areas as warranted.
The White Gold Property is located 25km south of the JP Ross – Vertigo target and is host to the Golden Saddle and Arc deposits. The Company recently announced an updated mineral resource estimate(1) on the deposits consisting of an Indicated Mineral Resource of 1,039,600 gold ounces within 14,330,000 tonnes at 2.26 g/t gold and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 508,700 gold ounces within 10,696,000 tonnes at 1.48 g/t gold representing an increase of 25% based on 2018 exploration activity.
Approximately 86% of the resource is within the Golden Saddle which consists of three NE trending, NW dipping, zones of mineralization (GS Main, GS Footwall, & GS West) occurring along faults, fractures, and breccia zones in an overall normal to strike-slip structural regime. Together, the zones define mineralization over 1,500m strike length and from surface up to 725m down dip. This includes a continuous high-grade core of mineralization >3 g/t Au on the GS Main that is up to 50m true-thickness and traceable over 500m of strike length and from surface up to 530m down-dip. The GS West, a new discovery in 2018 and contributing an estimated 62,500 oz Au (1,339,000 tonnes at 1.45 g/t Au) to the resource, is located approximately 750m west of the GS Main and is interpreted as a western continuation of the Golden Saddle structural system.
The Arc is located approximately 400m south of the Golden Saddle and consists of two zones, the Arc Main and Arc Footwall zones. Both zones trend E-NE and dip to the north at approximately 50 degrees. Mineralization at the Arc has been defined, through limited drilling, over 1,200m in strike length and up to 450m down dip with mineralization open along strike and down dip.
(1) See Company news release dated June 10, 2019, available on SEDAR.
QV Property – VG Zone
Included in the Company’s regional program is 1,000m of diamond drilling focused on testing strike extensions of the historically underexplored VG resource located on the QV property, recently acquired from Comstock Metals.
Large portions of the property remain unexplored, which leaves a strong potential for the discovery of additional zones of structurally-controlled and/or intrusion-related mineralization, with several currently unexplored known targets with similar characteristics to the Golden Saddle and Vertigo. Approximately 4,300m of diamond drilling over 23 holes has been conducted on the VG to date. Of these, only 17 diamond drill holes formed the basis of a 2014 maiden resource estimate(2) of 230,000 oz of gold (4.4 million tonnes grading 1.65 g/t Au) in the Inferred category at a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au.
The VG resource is open along strike and at depth, and has similar mineralization and structural control to the nearby Golden Saddle deposit. The QV property is 16,335 hectares (40,000 acres) and contiguous to the Company’s White Gold property which hosts its Golden Saddle and Arc deposits, 20 km southwest of the Vertigo discovery on its JP Ross property and 44 km northwest of Newmont Goldcorp Corporation’s Coffee project. The resource and property were acquired by White Gold Corp from Comstock Metals in early 2019.
(2) See Comstock Metals Ltd. technical report titled “NI 43-101 TECHNICAL REPORT on the QV PROJECT”, dated August 19, 2014, available on SEDAR.
QA/QC
The analytical work for the 2019 drilling program will be performed by ALS Canada Ltd. an internationally recognized analytical services provider, at its Vancouver, British Columbia laboratory. Sample preparation was carried out at its Whitehorse, Yukon facility. All RC chip and diamond core samples will be prepared using procedure PREP-31H (crush 90% less than 2mm, riffle split off 500g, pulverize split to better than 85% passing 75 microns) and analyzed by method Au-AA23 (30g fire assay with AAS finish) and ME-ICP41 (0.5g, aqua regia digestion and ICP-AES analysis). Samples containing >10g/t Au will be reanalyzed using method Au-GRAV21 (30g Fire Assay with gravimetric finish).
The reported work will be completed using industry standard procedures, including a quality assurance/quality control (“QA/QC”) program consisting of the insertion of certified standard, blanks and duplicates into the sample stream.
About White Gold Corp.
The Company owns a portfolio of 22,040 quartz claims across 35 properties covering over 439,000 hectares representing over 40% of the Yukon’s White Gold District. The Company’s flagship White Gold property has a mineral resource of 1,039,600 ounces Indicated at 2.26 g/t Au and 508,700 ounces Inferred at 1.48 g/t Au. Mineralization on the Golden Saddle and Arc is also known to extend beyond the limits of the current resource estimate. Regional exploration work has also produced several other prospective targets on the Company’s claim packages which border sizable gold discoveries including the Coffee project owned by Goldcorp Inc. with a M&I gold resource(3) of 3.4M oz and Western Copper and Gold Corporation’s Casino project which has P&P gold reserves(3) of 8.9M oz Au and 4.5B lb Cu. For more information visit www.whitegoldcorp.ca.
(3) Noted mineralization is as disclosed by the owner of each property respectively and is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization hosted on the Company’s property.
Qualified Person
Jodie Gibson, P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration for the Company is a “qualified person” as defined under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, and has reviewed and approved the content of this news release.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Information
This news release contains “forward-looking information” and “forward-looking statements” (collectively, “forward-looking statements”) within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as “expects”, or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, “plans”, “proposed”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “forecasts”, “estimates”, “believes” or “intends” or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results “may” or “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, the Company’s objectives, goals and exploration activities conducted and proposed to be conducted at the Company’s properties; future growth potential of the Company, including whether any proposed exploration programs at any of the Company’s properties will be successful; exploration results; and future exploration plans and costs and financing availability.
These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: expected benefits to the Company relating to exploration conducted and proposed to be conducted at the Company’s properties; failure to identify any additional mineral resources or significant mineralization; the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, including to fund any exploration programs on the Company’s properties; business integration risks; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; fluctuations in spot and forward prices of gold, silver, base metals or certain other commodities; fluctuations in currency markets (such as the Canadian dollar to United States dollar exchange rate); change in national and local government, legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments; risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining (including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected formations pressures, cave-ins and flooding); inability to obtain adequate insurance to cover risks and hazards; the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on mining and mineral exploration; employee relations; relationships with and claims by local communities and indigenous populations; availability of increasing costs associated with mining inputs and labour; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development (including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses, permits and approvals from government authorities); the unlikelihood that properties that are explored are ultimately developed into producing mines; geological factors; actual results of current and future exploration; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated; soil sampling results being preliminary in nature and are not conclusive evidence of the likelihood of a mineral deposit; title to properties; and those factors described in the most recently filed management’s discussion and analysis of the Company. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information, or the material factors or assumptions used to develop such forward-looking information, will prove to be accurate. The Company does not undertake to release publicly any revisions for updating any voluntary forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities law.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange (the “Exchange”) nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Contact Information:
David D’Onofrio
Chief Executive Officer
White Gold Corp.
(647) 930-1880
ir@whitegoldcorp.ca
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ab2d8ea2-31c9-4e14-9411-bbe49db8485f