Fiore drills 24.4 metres of 2.85 g/t gold in Nevada
Fiore Gold Ltd. [F-TSXV, FIOGF-OTCQB] on Friday June 4 released additional results from recent core drilling at its Gold Rock project in Nevada. The core drilling program is designed to supplement the larger reverse circulation program, giving a more detailed look at the subsurface geology and structure while providing more complete and representative samples for assaying and other test work.
Highlights from new HQ core holes include 24.4 metres of 2.85 g/t gold in hole GC20-005 from the planned South pit area.
Fiore Gold, launched by financier Frank Giustra, is an Americas-focused gold producer with an initial plan to produce 150,000 ounces of the yellow metal annually, and later emerge as a mid-tier company. Its key Nevada assets include an open pit heap leach operation known as the Pan Mine.
Pan produced 46,031 ounces of gold during the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020.
Fiore also has the Gold Rock property, a 20,300-hectare land package along the Battle Mountain and Eureka trends that is anchored by the former Easy Junior Mine which reportedly produced roughly 75,000 ounces of gold in the early 1990s. The company is hoping that by operating the Pan and Gold Rock in unison, it will create a multi-asset, 100% U.S. domestic gold producer.
Gold Rock is estimated to host an indicated resource of 403,000 ounces of gold, plus an additional 84,300 ounces in the inferred category.
To achieve the 150,000 ounce/year production target, the company intends to continue to grow gold production at the Pan Mine, while increasing its resource and reserve base and by developing the nearby Gold Rock project.
On Friday, the company said highlight hole GC20-005 was drilled within the outline of the proposed South Pit and intercepted 24.4 metres of 2.85 g/t gold, an exceptionally high-grade result for this part of the deposit.
Mineralization in hole GC20-005 started within the pit limit but extended below the pit outline. This hole reveals minor modifications needed to the geologic model.
“It’s encouraging to see continued higher-grade intercepts from Gold Rock, along with a number of intercepts that extend well outside the current PEA pit limits,” said Fiore CEO Tim Warman.
“With the assay lab now caught up with the sample backlog, we’ve resumed and expanded the original 60,000 metre drilling program,” he said. “Assuming drill rig availability, we expect to have a consistent stream of assay results over the summer.”
Once the program is completed, Warman said the company will update the geology and resource models and look to provide an updated resource estimate ahead of the feasibility study scheduled for the first quarter of 2022.
The original planned footage for the drilling program to support the feasibility study was approximately 60,000 metres, with 35,000 metres focused on resource expansion.
With the recent intercepts of higher-grade material at the north end of the Gold Rock deposit, Fiore has added an additional 12,000 metres of reverse circulation and 2,400 metres of core drilling to the resource expansion program targeting higher-grade areas.
Fiore Gold shares were unchanged at $1.19 on Friday and trade in a 52-week range of $1.75 and 92 cents.