Angela Harmantas | May 3, 2018 | SmallCapPower: Canada's Golden Triangle is experiencing a mining renaissance thanks to Mother Nature and higher metal prices.
The Golden Triangle, located in northwest British Columbia, has a rich mining history that dates back to the gold rushes of the 1860s. The first significant mining operation was the Premier Gold Mine, which started operations in 1918 and produced over 2 million ounces of high-grade gold and 45 million ounces of silver. New discoveries at Snip and Eskay Creek cemented the area's status as one of the most prolific and high-grade mining regions in the world. Despite its history, the region fell out of favour, due to a combination of lower gold prices in the late 1990s and a lack of infrastructure in the remote area.
That all changed in the last five years as higher metal prices, new infrastructure, and bonanza discoveries made the Golden Triangle a modern hotbed of mining activity. Pretium Resources made a significant discovery they called Valley of the Kings and recently began production at their Brucejack mine, with Proven & Probable Mineral Reserves of 15.6 million tonnes grading 16.1 g/t gold and 11.1 g/t silver for 8.1 million ounces of gold and 5.9 million ounces of silver. Imperial Metals also put its copper-gold Red Chris mine into production in 2015, a massive project that is expected to produce copper and gold into 2043. Infrastructure improvements include a new transmission line, upgraded road access, and the completion of port facilities located in Stewart, British Columbia.
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Climate change has also had a hand in the renewed interest in the Golden Triangle and surrounding areas. Warmer average temperatures in the region are causing glaciers to recede, opening up new outcrops that have until now been covered with snow and ice. The region is primed for new discoveries.
"Mother Nature has essentially pulled back her duvet over our propeties and exposed these brand new discoveries to be drilled that are all in a world-class geological setting," said Roger Rosmus, CEO of Goliath Resources Limited (TSXV:GOT) (FSE:B4IE), a precious metals project generator focused in the Golden Triangle and surrounding area. "The glaciers and permanent snowpack are no longer there. Our business model is to look for and discover elephant-size projects that will tick all the boxes for a senior mining company to do a JV, strategic investment or take out. If it does not tick the boxes we won't waste our time on it."
Such is the case at Goliath's Lucky Strike and Copperhead projects, located just south of the Golden Triangle in an area that was previously covered by glaciers and permanent snow pack.
Lucky Strike comprises 24,400 hectares with logging road access, 3 km to the main power grid, 3km to a major highway and 40 km north of additional infrastructure in Terrace, BC. The main focus of this project is the Prosperity Bullseye Zone, which extends over 2.4 km wide by 3.4 km long. This zone is completely surrounded by the two most prolific placer creeks in the entire district that historically produced over 13,000 ounces of gold with nuggets reported of over 6 ounces. A SkyTEM survey indentified a classic porphyry signature over 2500 x 1500 x 500 metres that remains open to depth. On surface, there is widespread mineralization in exposed bedrock up to 24.7 gpt gold as well as in soils where a detailed grid was sampled over a 2000 x 400 metre area and returned up to 7.27 gpt gold. This high-grade soil anomaly has a geochemical signature consistent with a gold-copper-molybdenum porphyry and what could be a massive deposit that is the source of all the placer gold in the area.
Copperhead covers 4,354 hectares with logging road access from a major highway and close to the main power grid just southwest of Smithers, BC. Goliath has noted widespread massive and semi-massive sulphide breccias at surface over a 450 metre area running up to 7.97% copper & 45.41 gpt silver.
Goliath Resources is planning a drill program at both projects in 2018 to validate the sources of these large and highly-mineralized zones.
The management team behind Goliath Resources are no strangers to making new discoveries. Bill Chornobay, GOT's senior exploration consultant, staked and discovered the Golden Mile in Ontario that was eventually merged with Prodigy Gold and bought by Argonaut for $341 million. Mr. Chornobay orginally intentifed and staked Coffee Creek inclusive of the Supremo Gold Zone in the Yukon, which was purchased in 2016 by Goldcorp for $520 million. More recently, he completed a $53 million joint-venture with Newmont Mining Corporation on his Yukon projects he discovered, which is owned by Goldstrike Resources (TSXV:GSR). GOT's CEO, Roger Rosmus, has over 25 years of investment banking experience in the public and private sectors, acting as lead on many mergers, acquisitions and corporate financings. "When I saw these assets in BC, I was completely in awe as I've never seen anything like them in my entire career, and created Goliath to option these properties immediately" Mr. Rosmus said. "This has the potential to be something extremely special, very unique and very large."
Mr. Rosmus points to comparisons between Goliath Resources and several other companies in the Golden Triangle, which have seen their stock prices soar on the back of new discoveries in the region. In 2017, GT Gold Corp. (TSXV:GTT) had a highly-minerlaized soil anomaly before drilling and saw its shares climb from $0.22 to $2.76 after the company reported drill results from its porphyry target located at its Tatogga project. As well, Garibaldi Resources Corp. (TSXV:GGI) reported breccia outcrop with widespread mineralization before drilling, and its shares soared from $0.12 to $5.27, driven by positive drill results at the company's Nickel Mountain project. "Before drilling, Garibaldi had a breccia outcrop with widespread mineralization, and that's what we have at Copperhead, where we have up to 7.97% copper," he said "in addition our breccia outcrop at Copperhead, Goliath Resources also has a large highly-mineralized soil anomaly and high-grade gold at surface in bedrock at Lucky Strike. We have a great shot at multiple discoveries this year as we have the best of both worlds at our two drill-ready targets."
Goliath Resources Corp. has two other projects within the Golden Triangle, being Golddiger and Bingo, that it plans to explore further in 2018 to generate drill targets for 2019. Ahead of drilling Copperhead and Luck Strike, the Company anticipates completing IP, trenching and mapping. Goliath Resources expects work going on at all four properties, however, most efforts are expected to be put into Lucky Strike and Copperhead towards drilling. "We're looking forward to hopefully making a huge discovery or two," said Mr. Rosmus. "By the end of this exercise and success in the field we will have redefined the area as The Golden Rectangle."
To find out more about Goliath Resources Limited (TSXV:GOT), please visit the company's Investor Hub.
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