Tudor Gold proves Treaty Creek to be in excess of 23,000,000 ounces of gold equivalent – and they aren’t resting on their laurels.

By Ian Foreman

Tudor Gold proves Treaty Creek to be in excess of 23,000,000 ounces of gold equivalent – and they aren’t resting on their laurels.

Recent Drilling Intersects Wide Gold Intervals in two 150 Meter Step-Out Holes Including 1.31 g/t AuEQ over 337.5 Meters in Hole GS-23-167 and 1.01 g/t AuEQ over 412.5 Meters in Hole GS-23-164

Tudor Gold [TUD-TSXV; H56-Frankfurt] is very bullish on its flagship Treaty Creek Project, and for good reason. The company owns a 60% interest in the 17,913-hectare property that is located in the prolific Golden Triangle.  The company can rightfully boast that the property is in a one-of-a-kind postal code.  As if being neighbour to one world class project wasn’t already enviable, the Treaty Creek Project shares its property boundary with two world class projects.  It is immediately northeast of, and on trend with, Seabridge Gold’s KSM property – with proven and probable reserves of 47.3 million ounces of gold, 7.32 billion pounds of copper and 160 million ounces of silver.  And, not to be outdone, the Treaty Creek Project boarders Newcrest Mining’s Brucejack mine property, which is host to one of the highest-grade operating gold mines in the world to the south.  

Although it may seem obvious today to have a significant endowment of mineralization in proximity to world class deposits, it wasn’t until Tudor Gold stepped on the property that the deposits started to take shape.  Like many properties in the Golden Triangle, exploration at Treaty Creek has been documented for almost a century.  The Treaty Gossan was initially discovered and staked in 1928.  Between 1953 and 1980 prospecting over the current Treaty Creek Property area was undertaken by many companies, but no significant mineralization was reported.  Exploration activities from 1981 included geological mapping prospecting and geochemical sampling, followed by blasting and hand trenching of several surface mineral showings. Beginning in 1998, ground and airborne magnetic and electromagnetic surveys were completed over various targets.  Drill programs were undertaken from 1989 through to 2009.  Even after all of that work, the true extent of the mineralization remained unknown.

Tudor began exploring the Treaty Creek Property in earnest in 2016.  Initial work was completed mostly around the historic Copper Belle Zone. Drilling in 2018, that was designed to step-out and test mineralization to the west and north, successfully defined and extended mineralization to a depth of up to 700 metres.  This new zone was named Goldstorm and became the focus of a majority of the company’s exploration efforts.  Drilling from 2019 through to 2022 proceeded unabated with a combined total of 126,088 metres of drilling in 148 drill holes.

Highlights of the 2022 drill program at the Goldstorm deposit:

GS-22-159 returned a drill length intercept of 489.0 metres grading 1.12 grams per tonne gold equivalent and ended in mineralization.

GS-22-162 intercepted a drill length intercept of 258.0 metres grading 1.03 grams per tonne gold equivalent.

In 2023, drilling continues to show the Goldstorm Deposit to be a very large structurally controlled gold-silver-copper porphyry mineralizing system is open to further expansion to the south, north, northeast and at depth.  Gold mineralization is hosted primarily within andesitic tuffs and volcanic breccias, punctuated by narrow intrusive bodies.  The deposit has been divided into six domains – Copper Belle, 300H, NS STK, R66, CS-600 and DS5.

Recent results from the current 25,000-meter drill program include two 150-meter step-out holes intercepting significant mineralization outside the defined mineral resource area.  Highlights from these intercepts include 1.31 g/t gold equivalent over 337.5 meters in hole GS-23-167 and 1.01 g/t gold equivalent over 412.5 meters in hole GS-23-164.

Previously announced the first quarter of this year, the updated mineral resource estimate for the Goldstorm deposit resulted in an impressive 53-per-cent increase in the gold equivalent grade and a 20-per-cent increase in total gold equivalent ounces within the indicated mineral resource category.  The current resources for Goldstorm now include an indicated mineral resource of 641.93 million tonnes with a grade of 0.91 grams per tonne gold, 5.45 grams per tonne silver and 0.15 percent copper, which totals to 23.37 million gold equivalent ounces.  The inferred mineral resource totals 233.90 million tonnes grading 0.74 grams per tonne gold, 5.99 grams per tonne silver and 0.16 percent copper for an additional 7.35 million gold equivalent ounces.

Commenting on the results of the updated mineral resource estimate, Ken Konkin, president and chief executive officer of Tudor Gold stated, “… These improvements to the Goldstorm deposit are expected to provide an excellent foundation as the company advances the Treaty Creek project towards an initial economic assessment.”

Even though the hectic pace of drilling has dramatically increased the size and scope of the deposit, the company believes that there remains significant untapped potential yet to be proven with the drill bit.  To that end Tudor gold will continue definition and expansion drilling in 2023 to target higher gold, silver and copper grades throughout the northern expansion area of the deposit.

The property is host to numerous additional porphyry and epithermal targets with the more advanced Eureka, Calm Before the Storm (CBS), and Perfectstorm zones receiving a bulk of the exploration effort.  The Perfectstorm Zone is the largest of the exploration targets and holds significant potential as it lies only 2.5 kilometres from, and is on trend with, Seabridge Gold’s Iron Cap deposit.

Very encouraging results have been returned from each of the zones with highlights being:

118.6 m of 0.72 grams per tonne gold equivalent in drill hole PS-21-06 within the Perfectstorm Zone:

217.5 m of 0.76 grams per tonne gold equivalent in drill hole EK-21-01 within Eureka Zone:

155.5 m of 0.82 grams per tonne gold equivalent in drill hole CBS-21-02 within the Calm Before the Storm Zone

Management of Tudor Gold has also been busy in the boardroom as they have successfully realized value for the company’s other assets.  At the tail end of 2022, the shareholders of Tudor Gold benefitted from the creation of a spin-out company, Goldstorm Metals Corp., which now trades on the TSX Venture Exchange. Goldstorm acquired the Crown property from Tudor Gold for consideration totalling 49,847,967 Goldstorm shares to the Tudor Gold shareholders.

Then, in January of this year the company completed the sale of the Eskay North property to Skeena Resources Ltd. for total consideration of $2.8-million consisting of 231,404 common shares of Skeena at a price of $6.05 per share (valued at $1.4-million) and $1.4-million in cash as per the purchase and sales agreement made on Oct. 28, 2022.

As per Ken Konkin, these deals allow Tudor Gold to remain committed to advancing and generating value from its Treaty Creek project.  Maybe this is why the company has garnered such strong financial support; they recently increased the size of its bought-deal private placement offering from $10-million to approximately $16-million due to strong investor demand.

With this hefty cash position, it will be a very busy year for Tudor Gold in 2023.