- Gold penny stock Ascot Resources (TSX:AOT) provided a construction update at its Premier gold project in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle
- By Oct. 31, the company reported that overall construction, excluding mine development, was 73 per cent complete
- Ascot anticipates the first gold pour by the end of Q1 2024
- Ascot Resources stock last traded at C$0.42 per share
Gold penny stock Ascot Resources (TSX:AOT) provided a construction update at its Premier gold project in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle.
The team has been on the move getting this project up and running and its stock performance has reflected its momentum.
Premier gold project construction update
At the end of Q3 2023, the company reported that overall construction, excluding mine development, was 66 per cent complete, and by Oct. 31, was 73 per cent complete. This compares to 48 per cent completion by the end of Q2 2023. Detailed engineering and procurement are substantially complete. Ascot anticipates the first gold pour by the end of Q1 2024.
In January 2023, the company closed a project financing package consisting of C$200 million as a deposit in respect of gold and silver streaming agreements and a strategic equity investment of C$45 million, a portion of which is structured as Canadian Development Expenditures flow-through shares, such that the total gross proceeds to the company were C$50 million. Upon securing the new project financing, Ascot re-mobilized various contractors to progress activities for the remainder of construction scope for the project.
The team’s 2023 exploration program at Premier consisted of 88 holes totalling 11,886 metres and included exploration drilling for resource expansion as well as in-fill drilling of initial mining areas at the Big Missouri and Premier deposits.
2023 assay highlights
On Aug. 25, the company announced the first batch of assay results with highlights including 32.85 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au) and 216.18 g/t Ag over 4.90 metres from a depth of 273.1 metres in hole P23-2468 and 54.28 g/t Ag over 6.52 metres from a depth of 253.48 metres in hole P23-2465.
On Oct. 19, the company announced the second batch of assay results with highlights including 18.93 g/t Au over 6.87 metres from a depth of 278.1 metres in hole P23-2475 and 21.98 g/t Au over 4.28 metres from a depth of 279.2 metres in hole P23-2472.
On Nov. 3, a third batch of assay results was announced that was the initial batch of assay results from the surface drilling at the Big Missouri deposit. Highlights include 98.84 g/t Au over 6.48 metres from a depth of 51.5 m in hole P23-2490, including 691.50 g/t Au over 0.90 metres. This is the second-highest-grade drill intercept at Big Missouri and is the company’s highest-grade drill intercept property-wide since 2015.
On Aug. 29, the company announced positive results from the 2023 induced polarization (IP) geophysics program at Premier. These results were from 28 IP lines totalling 29 line-kilometers across three grids. Highlights of the results included a strong IP anomaly showing potential that the Sebakwe Zone structure extends approximately 1,000 metres beyond the westernmost extent of surface drilling from 2022.
In August 2023 Ascot selected Procon Mining & Tunnelling for a three-year contract to advance the underground portion of the project.
Ascot management’s outlook for 2023
“Underground development and ore stockpiling has resumed at the Big Missouri deposit, coinciding well with record-high gold grades recently intercepted from drilling in that deposit,” Derek White, the company’s president and CEO, said in a news release. “Additionally, the surface work has been completed for the new Premier portal, and underground development will commence shortly and advance towards the Prew Zone by early 2024, which will enable Ascot to source production from two portals when milling operations commence.
“The 2023 exploration program has been very successful so far in achieving both short- and long-term goals. In-fill drilling at the Prew Zone of the Premier deposit, and at Big Missouri, has yielded plenty of high-grade gold intercepts in and around planned stopes. For the long-term, our IP geophysics program this year provided promising targets for future step-out drilling across many areas.”
Looking forward, the key items for the company in the remainder of the year includes completing the earthworks on the Tailings Storage Facility and Cascade Creek Diversion Channel by the end of November. An earthworks contractor was mobilized to the site in April 2023 to focus the reconstruction of the North Dam area where historical old tailings needed to be removed and underlying bedrock needed to be exposed and new dam material placed.
Ascot is looking to increase the number of piping contractors at the mill to finish the piping and systems and controls at the process plant to mitigate the impact from the delay in earthworks at the facility.
Completing the new temporary camp in Stewart, B.C. is also on the agenda.
Ascot Resources is a Canadian junior exploration and development company. It is focused on restarting the past-producing Premier gold mine on Nisga’a Nation Treaty Lands in the prolific Golden Triangle of northwestern B.C., and exploring its other properties for high-grade gold and copper underground resources.
Ascot Resources stock last traded at $0.42 per share. The stock has grown 18.0 per cent over the past month and is up 2.4 per cent compared with this time last year.
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