North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. March 15 said it is continuing metallurgical work to define and refine the project flowsheet for its 11.5-million-ounce Livengood gold project located along a paved highway about 70 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

This work is part of a US$3.7 million program approved by Tower Hill's board and will build upon the metallurgical studies undertaken in 2018 to continue to define and refine the project flowsheet.

Last year's program involved the collection of 4,000 kilograms (8,818 pounds) of metallurgical composites from select areas of Money Knob, the deposit that carries the gold resource at Livengood.

Approximately half of these samples were processed during 2018 to evaluate optimum grind size and to determine whether different recovery parameters should be applied to different areas of the orebody.

The balance of the samples collected will be used to further this work during 2019.

Work is also planned to advance environmental baseline efforts needed to support future permitting.

"The 11.5-million-ounce gold resource at the Livengood Gold Project is in a great jurisdiction and is highly leveraged to the price of gold," said International Tower Hill Mines CEO Karl Hanneman.

The company believes these attributes could attract a strategic partner with a long-term development horizon to Livengood.

In the meantime, the company continues the work needed to advance this world-class gold deposit in Interior Alaska to permitting and development.

"Our stock has responded to the recent strengthening of the gold price and our 2019 work program will continue to focus on optimization that will help us prepare to advance the best possible project toward future permitting," Hanneman said.

–SHANE LASLEY