FINANCE – Golden Predator Corp. reported March 21 that it has closed the private placement with Casimir Capital Ltd. that it announced Feb. 28. Pursuant to the offering, the company issued 13,758,116 flow-through shares at a price of C86 cent per FT share and 350,000 non-flow-through shares at a price of C75 cents per non-FT share, for gross proceeds to the company of C$12,094,480. In connection with the offering, the company paid cash commissions of C$350,196 and 420,000 non-FT shares to a syndicate of agents led by Casimir Capital Ltd. and including Northern Securities Ltd. Golden Predator said it intends to use the proceeds from the sale of the FT shares to fund exploration of its Yukon Territory gold projects and proceeds from the sale of the non-FT shares for general working capital purposes.

GOLD – Ethos Capital Corp. March 20 said it has staked an additional 266 claims near its Bridget-Betty properties in the White Gold district. Of the newly staked claims, 55 are tie-in claims and have been added to the Betty agreement under its tie-in provisions, and 165 are tie-in claims that have been added to the Bridget agreement under its tie-in provisions. The remaining 46 newly staked claims, which are near the Betty property are not contiguous and are owned 100 percent by Ethos. The company also reported that it has amended its 2011 option agreements with Shawn Ryan and Wildwood Exploration Inc. relating to the Bridget claims and the Hen claims. A total of 1,633 claims have been removed from the Hen agreement and added to the Bridget agreement, while 476 former Hen claims were determined not to be required for the company’s exploration objectives and were returned to the vendors. The terms of the Bridget agreement remain substantially unchanged, except for an increase in the total share consideration required to maintain the option having increased by C$600,000 over the life of the agreement. The revised claim package is now entirely covered under the Bridget agreement, and consequently, the Hen agreement has been terminated. In effect, the company now has the option to acquire 100 percent of the expanded Bridget claim group from Ryan and Wildwood by making remaining cash payments aggregating C$450,000, incurring remaining exploration expenditures aggregating C$2.3 million and issuing up to an additional 2.1 million shares, all staged over the remaining four years of the option term. “The net benefit to the company and its shareholders, taking into account the changes to both the Hen and Bridget agreements, includes the net reduction of option maintenance obligations over the next four years totaling C$525,000 in cash payments, C$2,450,000 in exploration expenditures and 1,15 million fewer shares to be issued,” said Ethos President and CEO Gary Freeman. Including the company’s Wolf and Betty option agreements with Ryan and Wildwood first announced in November 2010, the company’s total Yukon property position, including new staking, currently consists of 4,885 claims (102,000 hectares or 252,042 acres) in the highly prospective White Gold area of west-central Yukon. The Betty property now includes 2,237 claims covering 46,700 hectares (115,396 acres); the Bridget property, 2,364 claims covering 49,400 hectares (122,067 acres); the Wolf Property, 238 claims covering 4,950 hectares (about 12,232 acres); and the Betty WC Property, 46 claims covering 950 hectares (2,348 acres). Ethos has working capital of about C$14 million and says it is fully funded for 2012 to execute a planned C$7.3 million exploration program focused on the Betty Gold Property that will consist of about 16,000 meters of drilling. Ethos currently has some 42.9 million shares issued and outstanding.

GOLD – Kaminak Gold Corp. March 19 reported that drilling has begun at its Coffee Gold project, in west-central Yukon Territory. A fully funded program consisting of a minimum of 50,000 meters from four drills is intended to lead to an initial NI 43-101-compliant inferred resource on the Coffee property. Drilling will focus on defining gold resources within high-grade and well oxidized mineralized zones within the Supremo-Latte-Double Double area. New gold-in-soil targets, including the Sugar trend, also will receive significant drill testing. Kaminak said its drill strategy involves expansion drilling now underway on the Supremo-Connector-Latte-Double Double gold zones where mineralization comes to surface and is open in all directions. These zones occur within close proximity (about 1,000 meters) of each other and represent the highest priority targets known to date at Coffee. Drilling in 2012 will progress laterally along strike to maximize the delineation of near-surface oxide mineralization. Geological similarities on all scales suggest the Supremo-Connector-Latte-Double Double zones are related to the same mineralizing event, and interpretation of geophysical data supported by gold-in-soil anomalies confirms the potential for linkages between the known gold zones along trend and at depth. Therefore drilling will focus on step-out fences along strike of existing mineralization with the strategy to follow the interpreted structural linkages. Reverse circulation drilling is underway at the Supremo Zone, a 2,000-meter-by-2,000-meter gold-in-soil anomaly consisting of at least eight structural zones (T1 to T8). The drilling is testing the ‘T4-5 Trend’ where gold mineralization is established over a 400-meter strike length from widely spaced drilling and remains open to the north and south along strike. Additionally, two diamond core drills are scheduled to begin turning in about two to four weeks at the Supremo T3 Zone. A third diamond drill will be mobilized to Coffee by mid-May. It will be used to target the Double Double zone, followed by a first-ever drill program at the Sugar zone. Drilling in 2012 also will test the large-scale Latte structure with aggressive step-out drilling and will focus on expanding the Double Double zone along strike and at depth where mineralization remains open. Only 200 meters of the 1,000-meter-long soil anomaly has been drill tested. With only 15 percent of the 150,000-acre Coffee property systematically explored and more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) of untested gold-in-soil anomalies, the potential for future, near-surface, gold discoveries at Coffee remains high, according to Kaminak. A key exploration drill target this year will be the Sugar zone, a new undrilled zone consisting of several kilometer-scale long gold-in-soil trends such as “Sugar North” (minimum 1,000 meters long) and “Sugar South” (minimum 2,000 meters long). The scale and intensity of the Sugar soil results are strikingly similar to the original soil results that led to Kaminak’s initial drill discoveries (i.e. Supremo, Latte and Double Double) in 2010, the junior said. The geological setting and geochemical pathfinders suggest mineralized trends at Sugar are typical “Coffee-style” structurally controlled occurrences. Drilling at Sugar is expected to begin in May or June.

COPPER/GOLD – BCGold Corp. March 16 said it has entered into a letter agreement with Pacific-Link Capital Inc. whereby Pacific-Link can earn up to a 70 percent interest in BCGold’s Toe property, located 7 kilometers (4.5 miles) northwest of Capstone Mining Corp.’s Minto copper-gold mine. Under the agreement, Pacific-Link has the option to acquire a 60 percent interest in the 1,600-hectare property by making C$255,000 in cash payments, spending C$1.9 million on exploration expenditures and issuing BC Gold 400,000 Pacific-Link shares over a four year period. Pacific-Link can earn an additional 10 percent interest in Toe by completing a feasibility study. In addition to regulatory approval, the option is subject to BCGold and Pacific-Link entering into a definitive agreement on or before Apr. 30. The company said Toe is drill-ready property that hosts a number of copper-gold soil anomalies and “Minto-type” geophysical targets. The property is subject to a 2.5 percent net smelter returns royalty interest held by BCGold and a third party. Toe is one of 16 copper-gold properties (15,925 hectares) BC Gold has in the area of the Minto Mine and Copper North Mining Corp.’s Carmacks copper project. BCGold said it has spent some C$4 million on exploration in the region over the past four years and discovering seven copper-gold mineralized zones.

GOLD – Aben Resources Ltd. March 16 said it has paid the sum of C$30,000 and issued 100,000 common shares to Bearing Resources Ltd. in connection with a property option agreement dated March 1. The VF claims are adjacent to the west of Aben’s Justin gold project claims and allows the company to increase its Justin property holdings to about 18,300 acres (7,406 hectares) total. The property is located in eastern Yukon Territory about 35 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of the Cantung Mine and has an all-season road running through the claims. Under the terms of the agreement, Aben has the option to earn a 100 percent interest in the approximately 7,200-acre VF property by making a total of C$150,000 in cash payments and issuing a total of 1 million common shares to Bearing Resources over four years, and incur C$100,000 of exploration expenditures on the property during the first year. The property is subject to a 2 percent (2 percent) net smelter return royalty in favor of Bearing Resources. Aben Resources has been granted a right to purchase 1 percentage point of the NSR for the consideration of C$1.5 million. Aben completed a Phase One 2,020-meter diamond drill program consisting of 10 drill holes on the Justin Project in 2011 to target four different mineralized zones. Previously reported drill-hole results from the 2011 program indicated that a significant new greenfields gold discovery had been made on the property. The company intercepted 60.0 meters of 1.19 grams per metric ton gold, including 21.0 meters of 2.47 g/t gold in hole JN11009 in the never-before drilled POW Zone.