Freegold Ventures Ltd. Oct. 30 provided an update on its exploration activities at its Shorty Creek and Golden Summit projects.

This fall, Freegold completed a modest two-hole drill program at Shorty Creek, a copper-gold porphyry target located alongside the Elliott Highway about 75 miles northwest of Fairbanks.

Freegold discovered significant copper-gold mineralization at Shorty Creek during an inaugural drill program carried out there in 2015.

One hole drilled that year, SC 15-03, cut 91 meters grading 0.55 percent copper, 0.14 grams per metric ton gold and 7.02 g/t silver at the Hill 1835 target at Shorty Creek.

Since 2015, Freegold has completed roughly 5,650 meters of drilling, including this year's program, that has extended this porphyry mineralization and confirmed the presence of a sizeable target at Hill 1835.

Hole SC 16-01, drilled at Hill 1835 in 2016, cut 434.5 meters averaging 0.57 percent copper-equivalent, which accounts for the value of the copper, gold and silver.

The bottom 12 meters of this deepest hole at Hill 1835 averaged 0.55 percent copper, 0.15 g/t gold and 9.67 g/t silver.

In addition to the copper, gold and silver, the 2016 drilling also tapped significant tungsten in the form of wolframite.

SC 16-01 cut 207 meters averaging 0.045 percent tungsten trioxide; and SC 16-02 cut 409.6 meters averaging 0.03 percent tungsten trioxide.

Last year, Freegold drilled several step-out holes testing the extent of the porphyry target at Hill 1835.

Highlights from the 2017 program include:

• 360 meters averaging 0.24 percent copper, 0.07 g/t gold, 4.04 g/t silver, 100 parts per million cobalt and 0.03 percent tungsten trioxide in hole 17-01;

• 408 meters averaging 0.27 percent copper, 0.05 g/t gold, 4.97 g/t silver, 85 ppm cobalt and 0.05 percent tungsten trioxide in 17-02;

• 105.2 meters averaging 0.27 percent copper, 0.05 g/t gold, 6.75 g/t silver, 114 ppm cobalt and 0.06 percent tungsten trioxide in 17-03 (this hole was lost in strong copper mineralization at a depth of 362.2 meters);

• 192 meters averaging 0.11 percent copper, 0.13 g/t gold, 1.48 g/t silver and 56 ppm cobalt in 17-04; and

• 165 meters averaging 0.29 percent copper, 0.18 g/t gold, 6.81 g/t silver and 135 ppm cobalt in 17-05.

The two holes (1,148 meters) drilled this year at Shorty Creek continued to target expansion areas at Hill 1835.

Hill 1835 is only one of the potentially significant areas identified so far at Shorty Creek. Two other targets – Hill 1710 and Steel Creek – have been tested with cursory drilling.

Four holes drilled at Hill 1710, which is about 2,000 meters north of Hill 1835, cut copper mineralization with the grades increasing as drilling moved to the northeast.

Steel Creek, which, lies about 2,000 meters northeast of Hill 1835, was initially tested with one hole in 2017. This hole cut anomalous copper, along with a suite of minerals similar to that seen at Hill 1835.

Drilling has only been carried out along 1,600 meters of a 6,000-meter-long magnetic feature at Shorty Creek.

Quarry, where oxidized porphyritic rock with stockwork veining returned values of 500 parts per million copper in rock samples, is among the untested targets on the property.

Freegold said metallurgical work has been underway for the past several months aimed at determining copper, silver and gold recoveries through locked cycle testing, as well as evaluating the potential for a gravity circuit to recover the tungsten. Occurring as wolframite, the tungsten at Shorty Creek is likely amenable to gravity recovery.

Assays from the drilling and results from the metallurgical work at Shorty Creek are pending.

Golden Summit

Freegold Ventures said it is also continuing to optimize Golden Summit, an advanced staged gold exploration project located alongside the Steese Highway about a 30-minute drive north of Fairbanks.

Golden Summit hosts 61.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.69 g/t ton (1.36 million ounces) gold; and 71.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.69 g/t (1.58 million oz) gold.

The oxide portion of this deposit, found largely within the upper 60 meters, has 16.2 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.66 g/t (345,000 oz) gold; and 9.6 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.59 g/t (183,000 oz) gold.

In 2016, Freegold published a preliminary economic assessment that evaluates a 10,000 metric-tons-per-day heap leach facility to process the oxide material and a 10,000 tpd plant for the sulfide material.

The PEA requires both the oxide and the sulfide material to be developed in order to return an after tax internal rate of return of 19.6 percent and a net present value (5 percent discount rate) of US$188 million over a 24-year mine life at US$1,300/oz gold.

Potential optimization of the project includes the additional expansion of the current oxide material, which has the potential to boost the projects economics by increasing the throughput during the oxide phase.

During the 2017 season, 27 rotary-air-blast holes were drilled in an area to the north of the current resource area.

Highlights from this drilling include 60 meters of oxide material averaging 0.36 g/t gold; 39 meters of oxidized material averaging 0.72 g/t gold; 56.5 meters averaging 0.51 g/t gold; 52.5 meters of 0.56 g/t gold; and 54 meters of 1.09 g/t gold.

Using results of the previously completed RAB (Rotary Air Blast) drilling, ground resistivity and soil geochemistry, a series of vertical holes, spaced roughly 50 meters apart were drilled.

The hole pattern was designed to determine if the current oxide resource could be expanded to the north as well as to establish boundaries to the current oxide resource.

Freegold Ventures said the results of the 2017 program demonstrates the potential for expansion of the oxide resource at Golden Summit to the north with majority of the holes returning average grades above the internal cut-off used in the PEA.

To date, resource drilling at Golden Summit has been confined to a 300- by 1,500-meter area (roughly 110 acres). The larger roughly 13,000-acre land package, however, hosts numerous other significant exploration targets with potential to host additional resources, all of which have an oxide cap.

In addition to the oxide expansion, further definition drilling on both the oxide and sulfide material; additional metallurgical testing; and continued baseline studies will need to be completed to advance Golden Summit to the pre-feasibility stage.

Freegold Ventures has received subscription agreements for the closing of a C$1.19 million non-brokered private placement of 14.9 million units, which includes shares and warrants, at C8 cents each. This financing is pending regulatory approval.

–SHANE LASLEY