The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Outlining expansion area northwest of gold-silver reserves North of 60 Mining News – August 21, 2020
One hole drilled west of the resource area on Ascot's Premier Mine project near Stewart, British Columbia cut six meters averaging 40.78 g/t (1.31 oz/t) gold.
Ascot Resources Ltd. Aug. 19 reports that drilling has tapped spectacular high-grade gold adjacent to the proposed mining areas outlined in a feasibility study completed earlier this year that details plans for re-establishing a mine at its Premier gold-silver project near Stewart, British Columbia.
The feasibility study envisions four mines in the Stewart area – Premier, Silver Coin, Big Missouri, and Red Mountain – providing ore to the existing 1990s era mill at Premier. With the mill operating at 2,500 metric tons per day, this operation is expected to produce roughly 1.1 million ounces of gold and 3 million oz of silver over an initial eight-year mine life.
This production is based on 3.63 million metric tons of probable reserves averaging 5.45 grams per metric ton (637,000 oz) gold and 19.1 g/t (2.23 million oz) silver in the Premier, Silver Coin, and Big Missouri deposits; plus 2.55 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 6.52 g/t (534,000 oz) gold and 20.6 g/t (1.69 million oz) silver at Red Mountain.
In early June, Ascot began drilling in a 2,000-meter-long expansion area west of the Premier deposit. The aim of this drilling is to determine the connection between the various gold occurrences identified on surface such as Hope, Power, and Woodbine zones.
The first batch of results from this westward expansion drilling, released by the company in late July, included 3.23 meters of 20.06 grams per metric ton gold and 39.7 g/t silver in hole P20-2193; and six meters of 9.21 g/t gold and 6.9 g/t silver in hole P20-2183.
Drilling in this Premier West expansion area continues to encounter high-grade results including an impressive section of bonanza grade gold even further to the west.
Highlights from ten holes drilled at Premier West include:
• 24.15 meters averaging 3.74 g/t gold, including six meters of 40.78 g/t (1.31 oz/t) gold in hole P20-2202.
• 4.5 meters averaging 15.75 g/t gold in hole P20-2197.
• 4.25 meters averaging 9.91 g/t gold in hole P20-2203.
"Drilling at Premier West has again discovered very high-grade gold mineralization to the northwest of the 609 and 602 resource zones at Premier," said Ascot Resources President and CEO Derek White. "These impressive results are rewarding our commitment to continued exploration on this property."
Assays from additional drilling at Premier West are pending and the company has established another for testing an unexplored are 400 meters further west to the Power zone. Drilling of this exciting Premier expansion, however, will have to wait until the drills test higher elevation targets that are harder to access in the fall and winter months.
The drilling from this pad will be conducted later in the season when drilling at the higher elevation targets has been completed.
"Despite difficult weather conditions, we have two rigs operating on our less accessible, higher elevation targets at Silver Hill and the Day zone," said White. "Drill core logs from these targets show alteration and sulfide mineralogy commonly associated with precious metal mineralization in the area with assays pending."
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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