Golden Predator Mining Corp. May 20 closed a financing that provides C$2.8 million towards the company's goal of re-establishing a gold mine at its Brewery Creek project about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of Dawson City, Yukon.

Over a roughly seven-year span that began in 1996, Viceroy Resource Corp. produced 280,000 ounces of gold from near surface oxidized ore at Brewery Creek. This operation used heap leaching – a method of gold recovery that involves stacking ore in a lined facility and using cyanide to separate the gold from the rock – to recover gold mined from seven open pits on the property.

With gold prices averaging around US$310/oz in 2002, Viceroy opted to wind down operations and put Brewery Creek on care and maintenance.

Since acquiring Brewery Creek roughly a decade ago, Golden Predator has been carrying out exploration and studies aimed at resuming operations at the past producing mine.

A 2014 preliminary economic assessment outlined plans for a heap-leach operation that would produce an estimated 372,000 oz of gold over eight years. This includes mining 10.2 million metric tons of open-pit material from eight deposits averaging 1.35 g/t gold and reprocessing material located on the former heap leach pad.

Since that time, however, Golden Predator has successfully expanded the oxide resource that is amenable to heap leach gold recovery.

According to a calculation completed in January, Brewery Creek hosts 21.14 million metric tons of indicated oxide resource averaging 1.13 g/t (765,000 oz) gold; and 14.12 million metric tons of inferred oxide resource averaging 0.97 g/t (440,000 oz) gold.

This resource is expected to enlarge further when the 177 holes Golden Predator drilled during 2019 is included in an updated resource expected by mid-year.

The updated resource is expected to form the basis for a feasibility study that details the company's plan to resume mining at Brewery Creek.

Golden Predator Mining Corp.

Camp and surface facilities at Brewery Creek.

The net proceeds raised during the recent financing will be used for oxide core development and metallurgy drilling at Brewery Creek; bulk sampling, metallurgical and geotechnical testing; preparation of an updated mineral resource estimate for the Brewery Creek Property, completion of a resource estimate on the material Viceroy stacked on the heap leach pad; and a feasibility study on reprocessing the material on the heap leach pad.

Golden Predator's fully subscribed financing involved the issuance of 11.2 million units at C25 cents apiece. Each unit included one Golden Predator share and half a warrant, with each full warrant exercisable for an additional share at a price of C35 cents for three years. The expiration on the warrants could be expired early if the company's shares stay at or above C75 cents for five consecutive trading days on the TSX Venture Exchange.

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Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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