Lahontan Gold (LG.V) is a junior gold explorer that controls three gold and silver exploration projects (Santa Fe, Moho and Redlich) in the heart of Nevada’s prolific Walker Lane. The flagship asset, the 100% owned Santa Fe Project, is a past producing open-pit gold and silver mine where 375,000 ounces of gold and 710,000 ounces of silver were recovered.
Lahontan Gold believes the Santa Fe Project has the potential to host a multi-million ounce gold resource.
And Lahontan Gold’s management’s beliefs were correct! Today, the company announced major news. News which even saw the stock halted.
Lahontan Gold announced the maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the flagship Santa Fe Mine. This MRE is based on 1,275 drill holes totaling 125,435 metres including 50 drill holes totaling 13,118 metres drilled by Lahontan Gold since 2021.
Here are highlights from the MRE:
- Project-wide pit constrained Indicated Mineral Resources of 1,112,000 contained gold equivalent ounces and Inferred Mineral Resources of 544,000 contained Au Eq ounces.
- Project-wide average grade for the Indicated Mineral Resource is 1.14 g/t Au Eq; the average grade of the Project-wide Inferred Mineral Resource is 1.00 g/t Au Eq.
- Indicated Oxide Resources total 21.6 Mt grading 1.03 g/t Au Eq for 712,000 Au Eq ounces and Inferred Oxide Resources total 11.1 Mt grading 0.73 g/t Au Eq for 262,000 Au Eq ounces.
- The conceptual pit shells returned preliminary strip ratios (waste:ore) of 3.6:1 at the Santa Fe deposit and 2.3:1 at the Slab-Calvada-York Complex. Within both conceptual pits, gold and silver deposits crop out at the surface providing opportunities for rapid, low-cost mining operations.
- The MRE block model shows that gold and silver mineralization extends well beyond the conceptual pit shells, generating high-quality targets for additional drilling and resource growth.
Kimberly Ann, Founder, CEO, and President of Lahontan Gold Corp commented: “Lahontan is thrilled with the results of this MRE for the Santa Fe Mine, validating our business concept focusing on brownfield exploration and development opportunities. The MRE demonstrates the presence of a large, readily exploitable, oxide gold resource and importantly, higher-grade non-oxide gold resources. Shallow, good grade oxide gold mineralization in the high-wall of the Santa Fe pit and outcropping oxide resources in Slab-Calvada-York complex, give the Company a clear option for rapid mine development at a significant production rate. We intend to take advantage of the technical and metallurgical data generated over six years of historical mining and heap-leach processing to quickly evaluate the economic potential of the oxide portion of the mineral resource. All deposits comprising the Santa Fe Mine remain open for resource expansion and we look forward to continued drilling at Santa Fe as we grow and expand the size and scale of the project”.
What next? Lahontan Gold plans to continue to aggressively explore the entire property during 2023 and begin the process of evaluating development scenarios to bring the Santa Fe Mine back into production.
The stock gapped up on the news and is currently up over 46% at time of writing.
A major breakout is set to trigger with the stock expected to close over $0.08 by the end of the day. The stock actually saw some selling at the first resistance zone at $0.115. The stock remains in a new uptrend as long as it stays above $0.08. A pullback to this support could happen and this would provide a retest opportunity for buyers to jump in.
A close above $0.115 would be another breakout which would take us to the next resistance zone at $0.165.
Gold bulls should be excited as gold did close above the $1870 zone. As long as gold remains above, we can expect more highs in the future. This key breakout also means that gold stocks are likely to see major action in the coming weeks and months.