The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Strategic investment gives gold miner a foothold in the Yukon North of 60 Mining News – March 31, 2023
A helicopter rests on a drill pad at the Valley zone on Snowline Gold's Rogue property in the Selwyn Basin of eastern Yukon.
Underground development at the Goose gold mine project on the Back River gold project in Nunavut that B2Gold will gain ownership of with the completion of its buyout of Sabina.
Snowline Gold Corp. March 28 announced the closing of C$19.16 million (US$14.1 million) financing that involved B2Gold Corp. buying a 5% interest in the Yukon-focused gold explorer through the purchase of 3.94 million flow-through shares at C$4.86 per share.
"B2Gold is a major global gold producer with a strong track record of growth built on a demonstrated commitment to communities, sustainable mining and employee safety," Snowline Gold CEO Scott Berdahl said earlier this month. "Their interest in Snowline is a sound endorsement of the company we are building along with the quality and geological potential of our assets."
Snowline's assets include a roughly 280,000-hectare (602,000 acres) package of gold exploration properties in the Selwyn Basin near Yukon's eastern border with Northwest Territories and the Tosh and Cliff gold projects closer to Yukon's western border with Alaska.
The company's exploration has primarily focused on the Valley zone on the Rogue property in the Selwyn Basin, where drilling has cut incredibly wide zones of strong gold mineralization.
Some of the highlights from 2022 drilling at the Valley zone include:
• 331.3 meters averaging 1.03 grams per metric ton gold in hole V-22-005.
• 288 meters averaging 2.3 g/t gold in hole V-22-007.
• 318.8 meters averaging 2.55 g/t gold in hole V-22-010.
• 258.2 meters averaging 1.45 g/t gold in hole V-22-014.
• 363.5 meters averaging 1.4 g/t gold in hole V-22-028.
• 558.7 meters averaging 1.26 g/t gold in hole V-22-029.
• 338 meters averaging 1.32 g/t gold in hole V-22-032.
"We'd like to commend the Snowline exploration and management teams for their strong exploration work conducted thus far across their large mineral tenure in the Selwyn Basin," B2Gold President and CEO Clive Johnson said upon the March 14 announced that B2Gold would be making a strategic investment in Snowline. "Their highly prospective land portfolio boasts district-scale, untapped greenfield potential, and we believe their Valley discovery to be one of the more significant discoveries in Canada in recent history."
The investment in Snowline further strengthens B2Gold's recently established foothold in Canada's North.
In February, the gold mining company with operations in Mali, Namibia, and the Philippines made a roughly C$1.1 billion (US$820 million) offer to acquire Sabina Gold & Silver Corp., owner of the Back River gold mine project in Nunavut.
"The acquisition of Sabina represents an exciting opportunity to develop the significant gold resource endowment at the Back River Gold District into a large, long-life mining complex," said Johnson.
The Goose Mine at Back River is on track to pour its first bar of gold in 2025, which would mark B2Gold's first producing mine in Canada.
The proposed acquisition is expected to close by mid-year, pending Sabina shareholder and regulatory approvals.
The boards of both B2Gold and Sabina have approved the transaction, and two leading independent advisors – Institutional Shareholders Services and Glass Lewis & Co. – have recommended that Sabina shareholders vote in favor of the buyout by B2Gold.
A special meeting of Sabina shareholders to vote on the B2Gold buyout will be held on April 12.
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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