The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - January 29, 2025
A line of core shacks at Goliath's exploration camp at the Golddigger gold-silver project in Northern B.C.
Rob McEwen
Roger Rosmus
As bonanza-grade assays continue to roll in from a 2024 drill program that cut abundant visible gold in stacked veins on the Golddigger project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, McEwen Mining is acquiring a 3.76% stake in Goliath Resources Ltd.
Rob McEwen
"The Goliath Resources team has done a terrific job advancing their Surebet high-grade gold discovery in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia and McEwen Mining is thrilled to make a strategic investment into Goliath Resources," said McEwen Mining Chairman Rob McEwen.
Under the agreement, Goliath will receive 868,056 McEwen Mining shares, valued at C$10 million ($6.9 million) as of market opening in Toronto on Jan. 29, in exchange for approximately 5.4 million Goliath shares. Along with each Goliath share, McEwen will receive one-half of a warrant that is exercisable into Goliath shares at C$2.50 for the next 12 months.
This strategic investment by McEwen Mining adds to the 3.9% stake that the company's founder and chairman has personally acquired over the past couple of years.
"What initially caught my attention was the high-grade gold they discovered, and that it was a grassroots discovery in the Golden Triangle, which is a prolific gold mining jurisdiction, one of the most important in Canada," he said.
The mining magnate that took Goldcorp from a startup to a gold mining major acquired by Newmont for $10 billion in 2019 is not the only one grabbing Goliath shares. Crescat Capital (14.4%), Eric Sprott (3%), and Larry Childress (1%) are among the high-profile mining investors that have been drawn by the stacked veins of high-grade gold that Goliath is outlining along the Surebet Discovery zone on its Golddigger property in Northern B.C.
Considering that visible gold has been observed in 92% the holes drilled at Surebet, and all 64 of them cut mineralization, this discovery zone toward the southern end of the 52,756-hectare (130,363 acres) is living up to its name for Goliath and its investors.
Over the 2021 through 2023 exploration seasons, Goliath completed more than 65,000 meters of drilling that outlined three interrelated high-grade gold zones – Surebet, Bonanza Shear, and Golden Gate – a 1,800-meter-long trend at the Surebet Discovery.
"The discovery is noted for having a series of stacked gently dipping veins with widespread high-grade gold," Rosmus explained.
While a resource has yet to be calculated, a geological model completed early in 2023 estimates that these zones together host an estimated 22.9 million cubic meters of mineralized rock averaging 7.74 g/t gold-equivalent, which accounts for the value of both the gold and silver.
This model, however, does not include the results from the drilling completed in 2023 or 2024.
Highlights from the 2023 drilling along the Surebet corridor include:
• 23 meters averaging 18.95 g/t gold and 95.3 g/t silver (21.08 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-157.
• 6.9 meters averaging 5.81 g/t gold and 719.1 g/t silver (14.68 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-173.
• 7.9 meters averaging 64.88 g/t gold and 8 g/t silver (65 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-23-180.
• 27 meters averaging 11.07 g/t gold and 23 g/t silver (24.83 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD23-197.
The thick zones of high-grade gold being outlined at an easily accessible project in B.C. caught McEwen's attention in 2023.
"Worldwide, grassroots discoveries of high-grade gold in a mining-friendly jurisdiction well-known for high-grade gold mines are exceedingly rare," he said. "They were able to make the grassroots discovery due to it until fairly recently being covered by glaciers and permanent snowpack that have receded to expose a large area of outcropping rock that has now been significantly advanced over the past few drilling seasons."
While assays from the 2024 drilling season have been slow to roll in, the results from the 14 holes received so far have been impressive.
Roger Rosmus
"Each season we have seen the discovery get better and saw several pleasant surprises in 2024, including the high percentage of visible gold in our deeper drilling into the system," said Rosmus. "In our 2023 drilling, we found visible gold in 32% of the drill holes and in 2024 that increased to 92%."
Highlights from the 2024 Surebet assays reported so far include:
• 5.24 meters averaging 34.26 g/t gold and 34.15 g/t silver (35.04 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-24-235.
• 8.95 meters averaging 30.39 g/t gold and 16 g/t silver (30.55 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-24-249.
• 39 meters averaging 34.47 g/t gold and 3.96 g/t silver (34.52 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-24-260.
• Four meters averaging 32.56 g/t gold and 8.92 g/t silver (32.67 g/t gold-equivalent) in hole GD-24-262.
The 39-meter intercept of greater than one ounce per metric ton gold in hole GD-24-260 included a 10-meter bonanza grade subinterval averaging 132.78 g/t (4.27 oz/t) gold and 12.98 g/t silver.
McEwen and Rosmus are eagerly awaiting assays from 50 holes out of the 64 holes drilled within the Surebet Corridor last year, 29 previously drilled holes that are being relogged, and 12 holes drilled last year at Treasure Island, a gold-rich volcanic-hosted massive sulfide target about 36 kilometers (22 miles) north of the Surebet Corridor.
"We still have 89 pending holes from the 2024 drilling season to report and think we may have made a second important discovery," said Rosmus, referring to Treasure Island.
McEwen Mining joined its chairman to grab a foothold in Goliath as the Surebet excitement builds and the potential for a Treasure Island discovery remains pending.
"We look forward to seeing the pending assays from Goliath Resources' Surebet discovery and their new VMS discovery and we are pleased to be enthusiastic shareholders of Goliath with this strategic investment," McEwen said.
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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