GOLD – International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. Jan. 12 said it appointed Carl Brechtel as chief operating officer for the company’s Livengood gold project in Interior Alaska. Brechtel, who has 30 years of mining industry experience on four continents, will be in charge of advancing the Livengood project toward production as well as assembling the operational team necessary to construct and operate a major mining project. Brechtel has spent the past 12 years working for AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. International Tower Hill said Bretchel’s recent role in directing the development work for AngloGold on its La Colosa Project in Columbia, a major, large-scale, low-grade open pit milling project, is particularly timely for the Livengood project. Commenting on the appointment, International Tower Hill President and CEO Jeffrey Pontius said: “The addition of Mr. Brechtel to our management team is a major step forward for the Livengood project on its path to becoming Alaska’s next mine and for ITH as an emerging gold company.”
GOLD - Freegold Ventures Ltd. and Western Standard Metals Ltd. Jan. 12 said they have signed an option agreement whereby Western Standard can earn a 50 percent interest in Freegold Ventures’ Golden Summit project located 20 miles, or 32 kilometers, north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Under the terms of the agreement, Western Standard will pay Freegold C$300,000 on the closing of the deal and make exploration expenditures of US$5.75 million by Dec. 31, 2013. The 2010 exploration expenditure commitment is US$750,000. Western Standard said its initial exploration program will consist of data compilation, verification and target generation to identify areas for drilling in 2010. Initial drilling will be focused on extending the near-surface intrusion-hosted gold mineralization intersected in historic drill holes at the Tolovana-Dolphin deposit. The company said it is targeting large, bulk minable zones in its exploration program.
POLYMETALLIC - NovaGold Resources Inc. Jan. 11 said it has completed its purchase of 100 percent of the Ambler volcanic massive sulfide property in Northwest Alaska, which hosts the high-grade copper-zinc-gold-silver Arctic deposit. NovaGold has issued Kennecott Exploration Company 931,098 NovaGold shares valued at US$5 million, and agreed to make cash payments to the vendor of US$12 million each in January 2011 and January 2012, respectively. Kennecott will retain a 1 percent net smelter return royalty that NovaGold can purchase at any time for a one-time payment of US$10 million. NovaGold said it has appointed Scott Petsel as the Ambler project manager. “The Arctic deposit ranks among the largest and richest known VMS deposits in the world, and evidence suggests there are similar deposits in the region,” said Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, president and CEO of NovaGold. “In 2010 we will focus on environmental baseline studies as well as engineering and metallurgical studies to gain a better understanding of the true potential of the district.”
POLYMETALLIC - CBR Gold Corp. and joint venture partner Heatherdale Resources Ltd. Jan. 11 said drilling at the high-grade Niblack copper-gold-silver-zinc project in Southeast Alaska has resumed for 2010, and will soon ramp up with the deployment of a second underground diamond drill rig and crew. This 2009-2010 drill program is focused on expanding a new high-grade mineral body, discovered southwest of previously known mineral resources in the Lookout deposit. Lookout is one of six known volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits at the Niblack property. “Initial assay results from the program confirm the new geological modeling and belief that a major new zone of high-grade gold-copper-silver-zinc mineralization lies to the southwest of the Lookout deposit,” said CBR Gold President and CEO John Williamson.
POLYMETALLIC - Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. Jan. 14 said it has received about C$2.4 million from the exercise of outstanding warrants over the past 30 days and as a result has issued 12 million shares at a price of C20 cents per share. Last month the company accelerated the expiry of 13 million warrants by giving notice to its warrant holders that it was exercising its right to do so under the terms of the warrants. The unexercised balance of 975,000 accelerated warrants expired yesterday. Constantine currently has 79,978,022 shares outstanding following the issuance of these shares and has C$3.9 million cash in the bank. The company said the funds will be used primarily for the 2010 Palmer drill program that is currently in the planning stages, utilizing 3 drills and projected to start in late May 2010. Constantine expects to release results shortly of the first NI 43-101-compliant Palmer resource estimate. The resource estimate is based on recent drill results from the Southwall and RW zones. The company is also evaluating plans for a 2010 winter drill program at its high-grade Munro Croesus gold project in Ontario.
