It's February 2016 and gold prices seem to be making a turn around. In fact the price of gold is up well over $100 per ounce since the start of the new year. This rise in price brings on gold fever to not only the gold bugs but it also brings a lift to those who are looking for something to invest in. After all mining stocks have always been the "get rich" plays as Victoria gold yukon bring seems to bring out the getting rich more than anything else.
In North America tales of getting rich on gold go way back to the California gold rush and the Klondike gold rush. It's here in the Yukon that we are going to take a look at a shovel ready project. Victoria Gold Corp. VIT owns the Dublin Gulch Project which is the most advanced project in the region and is on track to be the largest gold mine in Yukon history. The project known as the Eagle Gold Project is situated in part of the Tintina gold belt and is hosted within the mineral rich Selwyn Basin. The property hosts the 6.3 M oz Eagle gold deposit (Indicated and Inferred), the Wolf tungsten deposit and a 13 km-long belt of Au and Ag mineralization known as the Potato Hills Trend (PHT)
Exploration and placer OF Victoria Gold mining began on the Dublin Gulch property in 1895 with the first gold production reported in 1898. In 1904, tungsten was identified in placer concentrates. The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) discovered in situ scheelite in Dublin Gulch in 1916. Subsequent exploration led to the discovery of lode gold deposits at the Eagle Gold Project.
The proposed Eagle gold mine will produce dore from a conventional open pit operation with a three-stage crushing plant, in-valley heap leach and carbon-in-leach adsorption-desorption gold recovery plant. There is no shortage of gol bearing material for this project either. After 57,000 m of drilling the company has resources of 4.8 M indicated oz Au (including Reserves). This comes from 222 M tonnes @ 0.68 g/t and 1.5 M inferred oz Au from 78 M tonnes @ 0.60 g/t.
The Eagle Gold Project has received all major permits for construction and operations, completed the Environmental Assessment process and has a signed Comprehensive Cooperation and Benefits Agreement with the local First Nations. Once the mine is in operation they calculate that an estimated 212,000 oz gold production per year with an all in operating cost of $730 per oz. The mine will be an open pit mine and will operate as a drill, blast, shovel and haul operation with a nominal rate of 29,500 tpd ore and mine life of 9 years. Total ore to be mined and processed is 91.6 million tonnes grading 0.78 g/t for a total contained 2.3 million ounces gold. Grades are significantly higher in the initial 3 years and include 21.6 million tonnes of ore grading 0.94 g/t, significantly accelerating cash flows in the first few years of operations.
Even though the company at present has ample ground to work for the next decade, they are looking for other targets of interest. One of those targets is the Olive target which is located 2.5 km from Victoria's Eagle gold deposit and is the site of several historically exploited high-grade sulfide veins. This area has been mined on a small scale from shallow shafts and adits at the turn of the last century and placer mining in creeks draining the area indicate gold-bearing host rocks. In 1991 a200 meter trench excavated and sampled and exposed a zone of quartz and quartz-arsenopyrite veins hosted in the Dublin Gulch granodiorite that averaged 1.2 g/t Au over 97.6 meters. Diamond drill holes collared in the trench intersected 89.9m grading 1.08 g/t Au and drilling by Victoria Gold Corp in 2010 verified the gold mineralization.
As far as stock of the company, Sun Valley Gold and Kinross are majority shareholders with >15% interests in the Company. The company has 360 million shares O/S and as of November 2015 the company around 13 million cash. The stock has seen an 11 cent low and a 20 cent high for the past 52 weeks.
As always, use Due Diligence and see our Disclaimer and be sure to sign up for our free news letter located on the right hand side of this page.
