Ascot Resources Ltd. Sept. 5 reported that initial results from this year's drilling at Silver Coin provide further evidence that this recently acquired project will be a significant contributor to the company's plans to resume operations at the Premier Mine near Stewart, British Columbia.

Acquired by Ascot last October, Silver Coin is part of a 100-square-kilometer (39 square miles) of gold-silver properties the company has accumulated around Stewart. This land package also includes the past producing Premier and Big Missouri mines; and Red Mountain, a gold-silver asset gained through the acquisition of IDM Mining.

Premier, which still hosts the mill and other infrastructure from past mining, is central to Ascot's plans to resume and start mining at all of these properties around Stewart.

Toward this goal, the company is carrying out roughly 46,000 meters of drilling this year aimed at upgrading and expanding the high-grade gold resources across three deposit areas on the expanded Premier property – Northern Lights, Big Missouri Ridge and Silver Coin.

Much of the early drilling focused on Big Missouri, which hosts 539,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 8.19 g/t (142,000 oz) gold and 20.5 g/t (355,000 oz) silver; and 2.25 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 8.25 g/t (596,000 oz) gold and 18.4 g/t (1.33 million oz) silver.

Now this effort has shifted to Silver Coin a deposit just south of Big Missouri that hosts 859,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 8.01 g/t (221,000 oz) gold and 20.5 g/t (566,000 oz) silver; and 1.16 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 7.78 g/t (289,000 oz) gold and 22.1 g/t (821,000 oz) silver.

Looking to expand and upgrade this resource, Ascot completed 10,500 meters of drilling at Silver Coin this year. Highlights from the first batch of results from this program include:

• 14.1 meters averaging 5.58 g/t gold and 4.5 g/t silver in hole P19-2024;

• 40.5 meters of 4.34 g/t gold and 18.6 g/t silver in P19-2025;

• 10.3 meters of 2.63 g/t gold and 1.8 g/t silver in P19-2032; and

• 4.1 meters of 6.45 g/t gold and 39.8 g/t silver in P19-2039.

"These results indicate that our technical team assessed the potential of the deposit correctly leading to an independent resource estimate that more than doubled the amount of contained gold," said Ascot Resources President and CEO Derek White. "We are confident that Silver Coin will be a strong contributor to our efforts of re-starting production at the Premier mill. We can see significant exploration upside at Silver Coin as there are several historical drill holes with high-grade gold intercepts outside of the core area of the deposit."

Ascot said several of the holes drilled this year at Silver Coin have intercepted visible gold, which has not been common historically in contrast to Premier where visible gold is a frequent occurrence. The company said it is very encouraged by these early results and is looking forward to additional batches of drill results from this recently acquired deposit.

Derek White

–SHANE LASLEY