Nighthawk Gold excited by NWT drill results

Nighthawk Gold Corp. [NHK-TSXV; MINZF-OTCQX] shares rallied Monday June 3 on news that drilling has returned a record high-grade gold intersection from its 100%-owned Colomac Gold Project in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

The company said 16 drill holes (5,329 metres) were recently completed to test specific high-grade targets within the central 3-km portion of the 9-km Colomac Main sill. Approximately 40% of the intrusion remains unexplored along strike and to depth.

The highlight drill hole is C19-08, which returned the company’s best intercept to date of 56 metres, grading 13.49 g/t gold, including 30.50 metres of 22.12 g/t gold, and including 16.50 metres of 34.18 g/t gold at Zone 1.5.

The company said drilling spanned Zones 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 with all holes intercepting mineralization. Wide zones of strong mineralization were also reported from Zones 2.0 and 3.0.

Nighthawk shares advanced on the news, rising 8.86% or $0.035 to 43 cents on active volume of 322,979. The shares are trading in a 52-week range of 29.5 cents and 51 cents.

Nighthawk Gold is focused on Colomac as it bids to show that former operator Royal Oak Mines may have underestimated the potential around a former open pit mine that produced 528,000 ounces of gold between 1990 and 1997.

The claims and leases that contain the former Colomac open pit gold mine are part of the much larger Indin Lake property, which covers 90,000 hectares and is thought to contain 20 gold deposits.

Five of those deposits are located on the Colomac leases, which are estimated to host a NI 43-101 compliant inferred resource of 2.61 million ounces (50.3 million tonnes), with an average grade of 1.62 g/t gold.

The estimate is based on 1,088 drill holes, or 141,013 metres, including 913 historical holes or 85,178 metres, and 175 drill holes or 55,835 metres completed by Nighthawk between 2012 and 2017.

The five separate gold deposits at Colomac are open in all dimensions, including Colomac Main Sill, Goldcrest Sill, Grizzly Bear, 24 and 27. Only one of those deposits, the Colomac deposit, was historically mined.

Intermittent mining from 1990 to 1997 was limited to three shallow open pits developed on a steeply-dipping differentiated mafic intrusion (Colomac Main Sill).

The company says mining activities impacted only a small portion of the sill’s 7-km mineralized strike length.

The high-grade zone 1.5 at Colomac, which Nighthawk discovered in 2014, is estimated to contain 317,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 1.85 g/t gold.

“Backstopped by our recently announced $11 million bought deal financing, we are not ensured the resources to implement our most active and expansive drill program to-date,” Nighthawk said in a press release, Monday. “Our drill program was increased from 25,000 metres and is now expected to exceed 35,000 metres in 2019, surpassing all previous year totals in terms of drilled metres,” the company said.

“We are incredibly excited and encouraged by our record of discoveries; and are convinced that given the scope and aggressive nature of our planned programs, much more is left to be uncovered within this highly prospective camp.”