Victoria Gold Corp. Dec. 28 announced that it has raised C$1.68 million for further exploration on its Dublin Gulch gold property in the Yukon.

Dublin Gulch is home to the Eagle Gold Mine project, an open-pit, heap-leach operation that is expected to produce an average of roughly 200,000 ounces of gold annually over a 10-year mine life from 116 million metric tons of reserves averaging 0.67 grams per metric ton (2.66 million oz) gold.

Well past the midway point of the construction phase, this mine is on pace to begin producing gold in the second quarter of 2019.

While pouring the first gold at Eagle is the primary objective, Victoria continues to investigate the property's wider potential.

This year's exploration of the Dublin Gulch property included nearly 5,400 meters of drilling, more than 4,000 meters of trenching and the collection of approximately 8,500 soil samples.

This program included 11 holes and dug eight trenches at Spinach, a target adjacent to the Olive-Shamrock, a zone about 3,500 meters northeast of the Eagle Gold deposit that hosts 9.5 million metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 1.08 g/t (329,000 oz) gold.

Olive-Shamrock is part of the current mine plan for Eagle Gold and Victoria intends to prepare an updated resource for this deposit once all 2018 drill results have been received.

This year's exploration also made an enticing discovery at the Nugget zone, a prospective area about 6.5 kilometers (four miles) east of Eagle that hosts the second largest known intrusive body on the Dublin Gulch property – the Dublin Gulch stock, which hosts the Eagle Gold deposit, is the largest.

This find, known as the Raven target, was tapped by three holes this year. One of these holes, NG18-006C, cut 101.5 meters averaging 0.57 g/t gold from a depth of 3.4 meters. This long intercept included 33 meters of 1.03 g/t gold from 61.8 meters.

In addition to the exploration at Spinach and Nugget, Victoria drilled 10 holes and dug 16 trenches at Bluto, a target about 3,000 meters east of Spinach.

Results from much of the exploration work carried out this year are pending.

"Even as we await final results from our 2018 exploration program, it is clear from the results received to date that a follow-up program in 2019 is warranted," said Victoria Gold CEO John McConnell. "The drill bit has proven to be our friend across the Dublin Gulch property and the over 20-kilometer- (12.5 miles) long Potato Hills Trend. This has resulted in growing resources at Eagle and Olive-Shamrock, advancement of the Spinach and Falcon zones and new exciting targets, Bluto and Nugget."

To keep the drill bits turning at Dublin Gulch in 2019, Victoria completed a flow-through financing that involved the issuance of 3.36 million flow-through shares at C50 cents each.

Under a provision of Canada's Income Tax Act, flow-through financings allow Canadian exploration companies to transfer exploration expenses in Canada to individual investors that purchase the flow-through shares. The flow-through investor, in turn, can apply his portion of the exploration expense to reduce or eliminate his federal tax liability in Canada.

After paying a commission of C$54,550, Victoria Gold netted C$1.62 million to apply toward continuing to explore the exciting gold targets across its 555-square-kilometer (214 square miles) property in the Yukon.

John McConnell

–SHANE LASLEY