NevGold Corp. (TSXV:NAU) (OTCQX:NAUFF) (Frankfurt:5E50) submitted an exploration plan of operations (EPO) to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its Limousine Butte Project in Nevada.
Submitted originally on February 8, the EPO includes key risk mitigating activities necessary to the project’s development. When it’s approved, the permit will allow expansion drilling around mineralization and into untested areas.
“The 2022 drilling discovered mineralization in many untested project areas and we have identified an abundance of new, high-priority targets to test in follow-up drilling,” said NevGold CEO, Brandon Bonifacio.
The company uses the results of the EPO as the foundation for advancement of the project through the exploration and pre-development phases. Also, NevGold will use them as the basis for an environmental assessment (EA).
BLM is responsible for preparing an EA according with the National Environmental Policy Act to identify environmental impacts.
The proposed EPO boundary at Limousine Butte covers all of NevGold’s land package.
The proposed EPO project boundary is 16,488 acres and will allow up to 200 acres of surface disturbance. This is larger than the previous disturbance area, which was 15 acres under the company’s exploration notices at the project.
The EPO also includes important environmental and cultural studies completed during the 2022 season. The results from these studies show the project is in an area with low risk of significant negative environmental or cultural impact. Also, NevGold can also use these results in future development stages as the company advances the project.
Read more: NevGold Corp. gets exploration notice approval from Bureau of Land Management
Read more: NevGold should be trading at a premium to peers: Analysis
Environmental and cultural studies show no significant risks
The geological model at the project is also being updated to incorporate the 2022 drill results. The 2022 drill program identified drill targets with the potential to infill and expand the mineralized footprints at Resurrection Ridge and Cadillac Valley to advance to a resource estimate. NevGold plans to drill in 2023 when the geologic interpretation and targeting is complete.
NevGold Nevada drill program at Resurrection Ridge intercepted more oxide gold on its last assay and expanded its mineralized footprint by more than 100 metres.
Plan view map of the Limousine Butte Project with identified drill targets in orange and mineralized areas in red. Image via NevGold.
NevGold increased the mineralization of the project after only 12 months of being involved. Additionally, there has also been some increased level of activity from other companies in the region. These include Freeport-McMoran (NYSE: FCX) drilling to the company’s southwest, and Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) (NYSE: CGAU) drilling adjacent to NevGold’s southeast. Limousine Butte controls over 20 kilometers of the total 30 kilometers of strike length.
“We are looking forward to the 2023 exploration program which will include following up on the near-surface high-grade oxide gold results that we drilled in 2022, and starting to test the newly identified targets within our large 67 square kilometer land package,” said Bonifacio.
Limousine Butte also displays multiple types of mineralization with metals including gold, copper, silver, lead and zinc.
NevGold shares rose $0.005 today and are trading at $0.345 with a market capitalization of $23 million on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Comparatively, Centerra Gold’s price rose $0.08 to $8.67 a share and a market capitalization of $1.8 billion. Freeport-McMoran shares also rose $0.48 to trade at $42.98 with a market capitalization of $60 billion.
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