Liberty Gold Announces Receipt of Upgraded Plan of Operations, Goldstrike Project, Great Basin, USA
VANCOUVER, Nov. 29, 2018 - Liberty Gold Corp. (LGD-TSX) (“Liberty Gold” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the receipt of a significant amendment to its Plan of Operations at the Goldstrike Project, the flagship of its three principal gold projects located in the prolific Great Basin of the United States. Located in southwestern Utah, Goldstrike is a past-producing oxide - heap leach gold mine that contains a large, shallow, district-scale, Carlin-style gold system.
Liberty Gold continues to meet its project enhancement goals in 2018, commencing with a maiden resource estimate released in February1, and a Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”)2 released in July. This permitting milestone is an important step toward meeting additional project goals.
Receipt of the Amendment to the Plan of Operations will expand access along the Goldstrike deposit trend from a fragmented area of approximately 5.11 km2, to a contiguous 8.66 km2 area. Within this area, Liberty Gold is no longer restricted to operating on site-specific roads and drill pads with fixed locations. The amended permit will allow Liberty Gold enhanced flexibility for road and pad placement for infill and step-out drilling in and around all of the zones in the current resource. In particular, the expanded permit will help infill and expand the Dip Slope zone along the northern margin of the deposit, where drill holes on fixed, widely-spaced pads do not adequately test the shallowly-buried mineralization, and where access to many areas was previously unavailable. The amount of permitted disturbance remains unchanged.
Liberty Gold CEO, Cal Everett, stated, “Receipt of this important upgrade to our Plan of Operations will help address our goal of increasing the total recoverable gold ounces in the Goldstrike deposit to over 1 million ounces and a projected mine life of 10 years or greater. The current PEA base case for Goldstrike is 713,000 recoverable ounces and a 7.5 year mine life. The expanded access and removal of fixed roads and drill sites will help us meet that goal.”
REGIONAL TARGETS OUTSIDE OF THE UPGRADED PLAN OF OPERATIONS
Liberty Gold resumed drilling in April 2018 and completed a total of 24,716 m in 200 reverse circulation (“RC”) and 15 diamond core holes in 2018. A number of holes tested mineralization in targets beyond the limits of the Goldstrike resource and amended Plan of Operations, the results of which are summarized below. These holes build on the 2017 drill results, including holes at Mineral Mountain (1.78 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au) over 67.1 metres (m) including 3.14 g/t Au over 32.0 m in PGS277); Fence Line (2.25 g/t Au over 13.7 m within 1.46 g/t Au over 24.4 m in PGS 473); and Jack’s Camp (0.78 g/t Au over 12.2 m in PGS 466).
New Drill Highlights include:
JACK’S CAMP
- 0.72 g/t Au over 19.8 m in PGS524
- 0.64 g/t Au over 10.7 m and 0.28 g/t Au over 9.1 m in PGS525
- 0.61 g/t Au over 13.7 m in PGS523
FENCE LINE
- 2.77 g/t Au over 7.6 m in PGS532
- 1.10 g/t Au over 13.7 m in PGS585
BIG RED
- 0.23 g/t Au over 4.6 m and 1.12 g/t Au over 4.6 m and 0.30 g/t Au over 3.0 m in PGS558
POTTER’S PEAK
- 0.94 g/t Au over 4.6 m in PGS565
KEY POINTS
- Drilling at the Jack’s Camp - Jedi exploration target in the southern part of the property identified mineralization starting from surface along the margin of a granodiorite dyke. Additional drilling is warranted.
- The Fence Line exploration target yielded two higher-grade intercepts associated with an east-west striking structural zone and a graben bounding structure. This zone is open to the east and west and warrants further drilling
- Drill holes at Potter’s Peak targeted jasperoid along the basal contact of the Claron Formation, which is exposed and mineralized at surface along the south side of the target, and projected to lie at shallow depth to the north over an area >2 km2. Initial drilling suggests that the jasperoid zone is relatively thin and variably mineralized, but the area tested is small in relationship to the size of the target, and more drilling is warranted.
- Future amendments to the Plan of Operations will focus on more comprehensive access to these areas.
For a complete table of drill results from the current holes, please click here: http://libertygold.ca/images/sites/default/files/GS_Intercepts11292018.pdf
For a map of drill collars and traces for the current release, please click here: http://libertygold.ca/images/sites/default/files/Goldstrike_NR11292018.pdf
The 2018 RC program was completed on November 1, the program focused on 1) infill and expansion of the resource; 2) testing of the historic heap-leach, stockpile and waste dump areas that are largely situated within the PEA pit and counted as waste in the model (see August 16, 2018 press release); and 3) testing of new targets property-wide.
Goldstrike is located in the eastern Great Basin, immediately adjacent to the Utah/Nevada border, and is a Carlin-style gold system, similar in many ways to the prolific deposits located along Nevada’s Carlin trend. Like Kinsley Mountain and Newmont’s Long Canyon deposit, Goldstrike represents part of a growing number of Carlin-style gold systems located off the main Carlin and Cortez trends in underexplored parts of the Great Basin. The historic Goldstrike Mine operated from 1988 to 1994, with 209,000 ounces of gold produced from 12 shallow pits, at an average grade of 1.2 g/t Au and an average recovery of approximately 75%.
Moira Smith, Ph.D., P.Geo., Vice-President Exploration and Geoscience, Liberty Gold, is the Company's designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and has reviewed and validated that the information contained in the release is accurate. Drill composites were calculated using a cut-off of 0.20 g/t. Drill intersections are reported as drilled thicknesses. True widths of the mineralized intervals vary between 30 and 100% of the reported lengths due to varying drill hole orientations, but are typically in the range of 60 to 80% of true width. Drill samples were assayed by ALS Limited in Reno, Nevada for gold by Fire Assay of a 30 gram (1 assay ton) charge with an AA finish, or if over 5.0 g/t were re-assayed and completed with a gravimetric finish. For these samples, the gravimetric data were utilized in calculating gold intersections. For any samples assaying over 0.200 ppm an additional cyanide leach analysis is done where the sample is treated with a 0.25% NaCN solution and rolled for an hour. An aliquot of the final leach solution is then centrifuged and analyzed by AAS. QA/QC for all drill samples consists of the insertion and continual monitoring of numerous standards and blanks into the sample stream, and the collection of duplicate samples at random intervals within each batch. Selected holes are also analyzed for a 51 multi-element geochemical suite by ICP-MS. ALS Geochemistry-Reno is ISO 17025:2005 Accredited, with the Elko prep lab listed on the scope of accreditation.
ABOUT LIBERTY GOLD
Liberty Gold is focused on exploring the Great Basin of the United States, home to large-scale gold projects that are ideal for open-pit mining. This region is one of the most prolific gold-producing regions in the world and stretches across Nevada and into Idaho and Utah. We know the Great Basin and are driven to discover and advance big gold deposits that can be mined profitably in open-pit scenarios. Our flagship projects are Goldstrike, Black Pine and Kinsley Mountain, all of which are past producing open-pit mines, where previous operators only scratched the surface.
For more information, visit www.libertygold.ca or contact:
Susie Bell, Manager, Investor Relations
Phone: 604-632-4677 or Toll Free 1-877-632-4677
info@libertygold.ca
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Liberty Gold within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements that address potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size and expansion of a mineralized zone, proposed timing of exploration and development plans, expected capital costs at Goldstrike, expected gold and silver recoveries from the Goldstrike mineralized material, potential additions to the resource through additional drill testing, potential upgrade of inferred mineral resources to measured and indicated mineral resources, the potential for silver resources at Goldstrike and intentions to pursue a silver resource study and beliefs regarding gold resources being contained within a larger property area. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "planned", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management at the date the statements are made including, among others, assumptions about future prices of gold, and other metal prices, currency exchange rates and interest rates, favourable operating conditions, political stability, obtaining governmental approvals and financing on time, obtaining renewals for existing licenses and permits and obtaining required licenses and permits, labour stability, stability in market conditions, availability of equipment, accuracy of any mineral resources, the availability of drill rigs, the accuracy of a preliminary economic assessment, successful resolution of disputes and anticipated costs and expenditures. Many assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of Liberty Gold and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct.
Such forward-looking information, involves known and unknown risks, which may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including, risks related to the interpretation of results and/or the reliance on technical information provided by third parties as related to the Company’s mineral property interests; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; the costs and timing of the development of new deposits; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; the timing and success of exploration activities generally; delays in permitting; possible claims against the Company; labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration as well as those factors discussed in the Annual Information Form of the Company dated March 26, 2018 in the section entitled "Risk Factors", under Liberty Gold’s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.
The mineral resource estimates referenced in this press release use the terms "Indicated Mineral Resources" and "Inferred Mineral Resources." While these terms are defined in and required by Canadian regulations (under NI 43-101), these terms are not recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). "Inferred Mineral Resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. The SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant "reserves" as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into reserves. Liberty Gold is not an SEC registered company.
Although Liberty Gold has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Liberty Gold disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law
1 See press release dated February 8, 2018
2 See press release dated July 16, 2018