ML Gold targets significant new BC porphyry discovery

ML Gold Corp. [MLG-TSXV; MLGCF-OTC] said Tuesday January 2 that it has commenced winter drilling on its recently acquired Stars property, which is located southwest of Houston, British Columbia. The company said the property lies within a highly prosperous porphyry belt that passes through central B.C.  Year-round road access and limited snow accumulations make all-season operations possible, the company said.

The program will consist of 2,500 metres of drilling in five to six drill holes, which are designed to test copper-gold-silver-molybdenum mineralization, identified at near surface to depth. Only nine historic shallow holes have been drilled on the property. One of them ended in 0.56% copper at only 110 metres, and another,  located over 1 km away, returned 142 metres, grading 0.25% copper. The latter hole was not assayed for gold.

Considering the shallow nature of the historic drilling, the company says there is a high probability that deeper drilling will identify a vertically extensive mineralizing system responsible for the high level style of mineralization, including chalcocite-bornite-chalcopyrite observed at and near surface.

“We are thrilled by the speed in which our team was able to bring together the property, permitting, and resources necessary to give our shareholders exposure to drill what could be a significant new porphyry discovery in B.C.,” said ML Gold President Adam Smith.

“We are excited by the quality and prospectively of the project that we have acquired and believe that the Stars Project will play a key role in the resurgence of this prolific mining district in the highly resource friendly jurisdiction of central B.C.,” he said.

ML Gold recently signed two separate option agreements allowing it to acquire up to an 80% interest in a total of 2,136 hectares of prospective mining claims in the Omineca Mining Division in north central B.C. collectively known as the Stars property.

ML Gold’s Stars falls within a string of deposits and past-producing mines, including Goldcorp Inc.’s [G-TSX; GG-NYSE] Equity Silver Mine, which produced over 77 million ounces of silver, 500,000 ounces of gold and over 800,000 kilograms of copper.

Stars is fully permitted for drilling on two main zones that were first discovered in the late 1990s, when new logging roads were being constructed in the area.

In October, 2017, ML Gold announced a maiden NI 43-101-compliant inferred resource estimate for its 100%-owned Palmetto Epithermal Gold Project in Nevada.

The company said it contains an estimated inferred resource of 10.1 million tonnes, grading 0.95 g/t gold, and 7.29 g/t silver (1.05 g/t gold equivalent), including 310,000 ounces of gold, and 2.4 million ounces of silver for a total of 342,000 ounces of gold equivalent in a pit constrained shell.

Beneath the pit constrained resource is an initial underground inferred resource, completely open at depth and along strike of 353,435 gold equivalent ounces.

At the time, the company said it was permitting a Phase two program designed to expand on and discover new areas surrounding the mineralized shells used for the resource calculation.

ML Gold shares rose 9.52% or $0.01 to $0.115 in early afternoon trading on Tuesday.