High-Grade, Open-Pit, Heap-Leach Gold Mineral Resource At Nutmeg Mountain
VANCOUVER - NevGold Corp. announced the initial Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the Nutmeg Mountain gold project in southwest Idaho. High-Grade, Open-Pit, Oxide, Heap-Leach Gold Mineral Resource - 1.01Mozs of Indicated Resources at 0.61 g/t Au (51.7 Mt, 74% of pit-constrained tonnage) and 275kozs of Inferred Resources at 0.48 g/t Au (17.9 Mt, 26% of pit-constrained tonnage).
Significant Growth Captured Over Last 12 Months: compared to the 2020 historical resource estimate, the Company increased the pit-constrained tonnage by over 32%, with further upside identified with high priority drill targets.
Mineralization Starts at Surface with Low Strip Ratio: mineralization at Nutmeg Mountain starts at surface. The strip ratio of the project based on conceptual pit-shells is expected to be less than 1:1, which is extremely low for an open-pit, oxide, heap-leach gold project. The low strip ratio will minimize upfront capital and development timelines of the Project, providing the opportunity for a future low-cost mining operation with rapid cash flow.
Higher Grade Core Within the Resource: increasing the cut-off grade from the base case of 0.30 g/t Au to 0.60 g/t Au, the Project has 560kozs of Indicated Resources at 0.92 g/t Au, and 81kozs of Inferred Resources at 0.87 g/t Au. Exploring for more potential high-grade mineralization will be a key focus as the project is advanced with further drilling and subsequent resource estimates.
Low Sensitivity to Gold Price: as seen in Table 2, the Project has low sensitivity to gold price. Decreasing the cut-off grade from the base case of 0.30 g/t Au to 0.20 g/t Au, the Project has 1.13Mozs of Indicated Resources at 0.53 g/t Au, and 365kozs of Inferred Resources at 0.39 g/t Au.
CEO, Brandon Bonifacio, said, “This is an important milestone for NevGold and the Nutmeg Mountain gold project as it further validates our corporate strategy and business model. We are pleased with the results of the MRE, as it illustrates the size, grade, and simplicity of this robust, at-surface, open-pit, oxide, heap-leach gold project in the Western USA. Since announcing the transaction on Nutmeg Mountain in 2022, we strongly believed there was immediate growth potential not captured in the 2020 historical resource. Using the same cut-off grade from the 2020 historical resource of 0.30 g/t Au, we were able to significantly increase the Indicated Mineral Resource to 1.01Mozs, and the Inferred Mineral Resource to 275kozs. Today’s MRE is the first step towards extracting the potential at the project, and with the mineralization remaining open, we will continue to focus our efforts on further drilling to expand the resource. As we have stated consistently, there are very few open-pit, oxide, heap-leach gold projects of scale and grade with mineralization starting at surface in this area, and that is exactly what we are building at Nutmeg Mountain.”