Moneta Gold drills 7.46 g/t gold over 31.55 metres at Tower project, Ontario
Moneta Gold Inc. [TSX-ME; OTCQX-MEAUF; FSE-MOPA] reported a project update and assay results from 46 drill holes for a total of 6,778.3 metres on the Jonpol and Garrcon deposits at the Tower gold project, located in the Timmins gold camp, northeast Ontario. The drilling was conducted as part of a 140,000-metre drilling program, started in 2022, designed for resource upgrade and infill of the 4.5 million ounces (Moz) indicated gold and 8.3 Moz inferred Au mineral resource.
Tower gold project update: 122,000 metres, in 444 drill holes, of the 140,000 metres infill drill program completed; application to secure 33 megawatts (MW) of power accepted by Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) – approval process continuing and expected to take 12 months to complete.
Jonpol drilling highlights: MGA23-158 intersected 7.46 g/t gold over 31.55 metres, including 16.48 g/t gold over 12 m, including 23.67 g/t gold over 7.90 m. MGA23-185 intersected 8.87 g/t Au over 11 m, including 12.35 g/t Au over seven m.
MGA23-154 intersected 1.38 g/t Au over 49 m, including 1.95 g/t Au over 15.80 m. MGA23-189 intersected 2.10 g/t Au over 29.50 m, including 7.70 g/t Au over 6.50 m.
MGA23-155 intersected 1.97 g/t Au over 23.35 m, including 2.94 g/t Au over 12 m. MGA23-177 intersected 2.26 g/t Au over 20.25 m, including 11.50 g/t Au over two m, and 2.58 g/t Au over three m.
Josef Vejvoda, chairman and interim president and CEO, commented: “The results from Jonpol highlight the significant promise of this deposit, both as part of the open-pit mine plan and exploration potential for an underground target. Moreover, with limited power available in the Timmins region of northeast Ontario, we’re very pleased to announce that Moneta has secured a first-mover advantage as our application to IESO for 33 MW of power has been accepted.”
Drilling is being conducted on 50-metre centres as step-outs and infills of previous drill holes. Additional assays from 2023 drilling are pending and will be released upon receipt of assays.
The Jonpol deposit currently hosts an open pit indicated resource of 8.90 million tonnes at 1.34 g/t Au containing 0.38 Moz gold and an inferred resource of 4.96 Mt at 0.94 g/t Au containing 0.15 Moz gold, while the Garrcon deposit currently hosts an open pit indicated resource of 26.79 million tonnes at 1.01 g/t Au containing 0.87 Moz gold and an inferred resource of 0.97 Mt at 0.83 g/t Au containing 0.03 Moz gold. The drill holes in this release focused on infill and extensions of the mineral resource within the current open pit preliminary economic assessment (PEA) mine shells from surface to vertical depths up to 150 m below the surface.
Moneta is a Canadian-based gold exploration company whose primary focus is on advancing its 100%-owned Tower Gold project, located in the Timmins region of Northeastern Ontario, Canada’s most prolific gold producing camp. The September 2022, PEA study outlined a combined open pit and underground mining and a 7.0 million tonne per annum conventional leach operation over a 24-year mine life, with 4.6 Moz of recovered gold, generating an after-tax NPV5% of $1,066M, IRR of 31.7%, and a 2.6-year payback at a gold price US$1,600/oz. Tower Gold hosts an estimated gold mineral resource of 4.5 Moz indicated and 8.3 Moz inferred.