Blackwolf enjoys productive year of plenty

Calculating a new resource for Niblack, growing its management, organizing talks of a centralized mill in Northern British Columbia, and drilling bonanza-grade gold at its first Golden Triangle project on the British Columbia side of the border, last year's hunt was plentiful for Blackwolf Copper and Gold Ltd.

Early last year, Blackwolf announced an agreement with Dolly Varden Silver Corp. and New Moly LLC to explore the possibility of building a centralized mill on New Moly's Kitsault project in Northern BC.

While talks of this were ongoing, the company reported significant news in the form of an updated mineral resource estimate for its flagship Niblack property.

"Our updated mineral resource estimation includes subsequent rounds of drilling as compared to the previous 2011 mineral resource estimate as well as cost parameter guidance from current underground operations, in accordance with the new CIM (Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum) guidelines," said Blackwolf Copper and Gold Executive Chairman Rob McLeod.

According to the updated calculation, Niblack hosts 5.85 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.94% (120.7 million lb) copper, 1.83 grams per metric ton (345,800 oz) gold, 29 g/t (5.5 million oz) silver, and 1.73% (222.6 million lb) zinc; plus 214,000 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.93% (4.4 million lb) copper, 1.52 g/t (10,400 oz) gold, 18 g/t (125,000 oz) silver, and 1.38% (6.5 million lb) zinc.

Before the summer exploration season was in full swing, Blackwolf entered into a deal to buy Optimum Ventures Ltd., which added yet another property to its impressive holdings. At the time of the Optimum acquisition Blackwolf brought on Morgan Lekstrom to as the new CEO.

With 17 years of mining and industry experience in progressively senior roles of executive management, project management, operations, and engineering management, the company felt Lekstrom well suited to "lead the pack" at Blackwolf.

Over the previous two years, Blackwolf had expanded its portfolio with five projects near Hyder, Alaska, on the Alaska-Canada border – Casey, Cantoo, Texas Creek, Mineral Hill, and Rooster – that host several highly prospective gold-silver targets with very limited modern exploration and virtually none in the last 25 years.

However, with the buyout of Optimum, the company gained ownership of Harry, a 1,333-hectare (3,294 acres) project found along the Granduc Access Road from Stewart and enclosed by Ascot Resources Ltd.'s Premier mine project to the east and Scottie Resources Corp.'s Scottie gold mine project to the west.

Blackwolf's impressive portfolio drew mining magnate Frank Giustra, who acquired a 17.5% stake in the company exploring overlooked Golden Triangle projects in Southeast Alaska and Northern BC.

"As Blackwolf enters an accelerated growth period with significant investments from Frank Giustra coupled with the addition of mining executive Andrew Bowering to the board and significant shareholder upon closing, we have significantly expanded our expertise in engineering, marketing and corporate development," said McLeod.

While the year saw maiden drilling at Cantoo, which gave signs of an existing porphyry deposit, this was overshadowed by the bonanza-grade gold drilled at Harry.

Seven holes were completed at Harry from two pads for a total of 1,740 meters, in which Blackwolf reported each hole encountering significant mineralization and one containing coarse visible gold that included a 10-centimeter-long streak at approximately 140 meters downhole.

While seven holes were drilled, the sixth hole was too good to let wait, so the company whisked it away for analysis as quickly as possible. What returned were some of the most impressive grades the company had ever seen.

Highlights from this hole include one meter averaging 312 g/t gold and 101 g/t silver from a depth of 139 meters and one meter averaging 277 g/t gold and 118 g/t silver from 199 meters.

"I extend my sincere congratulations to our entire team for this remarkable discovery," said Blackwolf Copper and Gold CEO Morgan Lekstrom. "We place great emphasis on Rob McLeod's exceptional expertise in the area, which played a crucial role in this discovery."