Premier provides Getchell resource update ahead of project acquisition

Premier Gold Mines has released an updated resource for the Getchell gold project in Nevada – last month, the company announced a definitive purchase agreement for the asset with Waterton Global Resource Management.

Measured and indicated resources at Getchell consist of 21 million tonnes, at 2.16 g/t gold for 1.5 million gold oz., with an additional 2.8 million inferred tonnes at 7.23 g/t gold for 646,000 oz. gold.

While the majority of these resources are pit-constrained, 562,000 measured and indicated tonnes, at 10.49 g/t gold, and 1.5 million inferred tonnes, at 11.9 g/t gold, are modelled within underground stope shapes.

“The grades of both the open-pit and underground deposits rank amongst the highest in North America and our future focus will be to advance both to production. Within our Nevada division, the Getchell project will become our largest resource, in terms of contained gold resources, and we are confident that it will quickly advance to potentially become our flagship Nevada project,” Ewan Downie, the company’s president and CEO, said in a release.

A number of zones with continuous mineralization, defined by historical drilling, were excluded from this latest estimate as they were missing original assay certificates. All of the known gold zones at Getchell remain open.

Also in August, the company announced plans to spinout its Nevada-based assets to shareholders. If the spinout goes ahead, Getchell would be included in the transaction.

Getchell lies at the intersection of the Getchell gold belt with the Battle Mountain-Eureka trend, just south of the Nevada Gold Mines’ (held by Barrick and Newmont, at 61.5% and 38.5%, respectively) Turquoise Ridge underground operation.

Cut-off grades for the latest resource range between 0.007 oz. per ton and 0.15 oz. per ton.

(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)