Battle North Gold Delivers McFinley Zone Mineral Resource Estimate

TORONTO,  - Battle North Gold Corporation reported a Mineral Resource estimate for the McFinley Zone, prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators (NI 43-101) by the Nordmin Group of Companies Ltd. An NI 43-101 technical report for the McFinley Zone.

George Ogilvie, P.Eng., President, CEO, and Director, said, “The McFinley MRE provides an encouraging step towards outlining future potential incremental mill feed to the Bateman Gold Project, which could potentially enhance the overall economics of the Project. The McFinley Zone benefits from more than 3,900 m of existing underground development that is connected to the Project shaft and underground infrastructure. The existing development and close proximity to the Project processing facilities allows us to potentially expedite the inclusion of the McFinley Zone mineralized material to the Project mine plan. Importantly, the McFinley MRE only extends down to the 162 m Level, but the zone remains open at depth and along strike. Given the success of our initial exploration program and the potential to enhance the Project economics, our plan is to continue to prioritize exploration activity at the McFinley Zone."

The McFinley Zone forms part of the "String of Pearls" exploration targets located near the Bateman Gold Project infrastructure. The McFinley MRE covers a strike length of approximately 1,160 m at a depth of 162 m below surface, and remains open at depth and along strike. Gold mineralization at the McFinley Zone is primarily hosted in gold-bearing quartz veins and sulphides in the banded-iron formation ("BIF"), basaltic unit, and ultramafic settings. The McFinley Zone is comprised of 9 subzones: D Zone, B Zone, C Zone, DHW, D0 South, D4FW, B3HW, UMN, and UMS. Some of the gold occurs in native form (i.e., coarse gold) and is primarily associated with sulphides, in fractures, and minor veining. Some of the highest gold grade intersections5 appear to occur when east-west structures crosscut the north-south oriented veins; these appear to occur near the ultramafic (C Zone and UMS) and BIF (D Zone, B Zone, DHW, D4FW, B3HW) units, where there are favorable chemical and structural traps for developing disseminated sulphides and gold-bearing veins.

The McFinley MRE benefits from approximately 1,620 m of recent confirmatory diamond drilling, 57,945 m of historical drilling, historical chip sampling (7,940 chip samples) and 2020 chip sampling (371 chip samples). The results from the 2020 drilling and chip sampling program appear to broadly confirm the historical drilling, chip sampling and mapping results4. McFinley MRE wireframes were first created using an approximate cut-off grade of 2.0 g/t Au. The wireframes were then grouped into nine domains, representing the nine different subzones of mineralization. These mineralized domains are based upon geological, spatial, grade differences and geochemical differences identified through sample testing done with synchrotron technology. The D Zone represents the largest domain by tonnes of mineralized material and estimated Mineral Resources. Composites are capped up to 90 g/t Au (depending upon the domain) and have a minimum composite width of 1.0 m. Block size dimensions were 2.0 m height by 2.0 m width by 2.0 m depth and sub-blocked. Four Mineral Resource estimation methods – Nearest Neighbor (NN), Inverse Distance Squared (ID2), Inverse Distance Cubed (ID3) and Ordinary Kriging (OK) – were run as part of the Mineral Resource estimate check. ID2 was used as the grade interpolation method for the McFinley MRE.

The McFinley Zone benefits from more than 3,900 m of existing underground development that is connected to the Project shaft and underground infrastructure. Furthermore, the planned Project decline ramp from surface will also connect to the McFinley Zone underground development, providing another point of access to the zone. Due to the average horizontal widths of the gold mineralization at the McFinley Zone, the future mining of the McFinley Zone could consist of the mass-blast raise mining ("MBRM") method (which can be utilized on stopes as narrow as 1.2 m mining width) and more selective mining methods such as cut-and-fill. Further work and a future potential test trial mining program may be required to determine the appropriate mining method(s) for the McFinley Zone. Initial metallurgical testing has indicated the amenability of the McFinley Zone material to be processed at the Project mill; however, further metallurgical testing and future bulk sample processing are required.