MINING NEWS: Little Squaw pursues gold in Livengood

Little Squaw Gold Mining Co. Jan. 7 said it purchased an exclusive right to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the Livengood Bench placer gold deposit about 75 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

The Spokane, Wash.-based junior paid a fee of $100,000 for the privilege, which includes making commercial viability studies of the property during the next two months.

Little Squaw said it has until March 5 to decide whether it will pay $8.35 million in three annual installments of cash and stock to acquire the deposit’s 3,800 acres of mining claims.

Little Squaw would pay $4.45 million in cash and roughly 4.33 million shares of its stock, assuming a 90-cent per-share price.

The Livengood Bench was actively mined until it was placed on care and maintenance in 2000 due to low gold prices. One of Alaska’s most historically productive placer gold deposits, it has produced more than 400,000 ounces of gold since 1914.

Livengood Bench consists of unpatented and patented federal mining claims, along with some State of Alaska mining claims. Though the claim block covers about 3,800 acres, the principal mining area consists of 747 acres of fee simple (patented claims) land, Little Squaw said.

An existing database on the property includes 2,370 drill holes, which outline 12.8 million cubic yards of gold-bearing alluvium (gravel).

Permits in place

Livengood Bench also has paved-road access via the all-weather Alaska pipeline highway.

“If the property is purchased, our company will be making a rapid transition from explorer to gold producer in the next 12 months,” Little Squaw President Richard Walters said in a statement.

Little Squaw investor relations manager Susan Schenk told Mining News that the company plans to dispatch a team of five specialists to Alaska to assess the property and retest drill samples.

—Shane Lasley