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

Nighthawk Gold Corp. Feb. 9 released an updated resource estimate that will support a preliminary economic assessment for its Colomac gold project and includes initial resources for several satellite deposits across the 359-square-mile (930 square kilometers) Indin Lake property in Northwest Territories.

Nighthawk is considering a mining operation at the more than 3-million-ounce gold resource at Colomac, which is expected to serve as a hub for processing higher-grade gold mineralization outlined in satellite deposits across the district-scale property.

Toward this objective, the company completed 40,085 meters of drilling at Indin Lake during 2022. More than 25,000 meters of this drilling was completed at Colomac Centre, which includes four deposits – Colomac Main, 24, 27, Goldcrest, and Grizzly Bear.

Incorporating the results of the 2022 drilling, Colomac Centre now hosts 59.8 million metric tons of open pit indicated resource averaging 1.45 grams per metric ton (2.8 million oz) gold and 10.73 million metric tons of open pit inferred resource averaging 2.32 g/t (802,000 oz) gold; plus 10.49 million metric tons of underground indicated resource averaging 1.73 g/t (584,000 oz) gold and 13.53 million metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 2.05 g/t (899,000 oz) gold.

This marks a 36% increase in the amount of gold and more than a 5% boost in grade in the open pit portion of Colomac compared to a resource estimate calculated in 2022.

It also marks a 34% Increase in the amount of gold reporting to the Colomac open pit inferred resource, though the grade in this category dropped 3%.

"Our 2023 MRE (mineral resource estimate) demonstrates a significant boost in estimated ounces in the indicated and inferred categories compared to last year," said Nighthawk President and CEO Keyvan Salehi. "More importantly, the OP (open pit) mineralization has reached 2.8 million estimated ounces in the indicated category and 0.8 million ounces in the Inferred category."

Nighthawk has begun work on a conceptual mine plan, infrastructure, processing, and economics for the Colomac and an inaugural PEA is slated for completion by mid-year.

"Given the size of the OP mineral resource estimate ounces, with elevated estimated OP grades, we believe that if the project is developed, it could have the potential to be a top-tier gold project with respect to size, scale, and economics, located in a mining-friendly jurisdiction," said Salehi.

In addition to upgrading and expanding Colomac resources, Nighthawk reports new resource calculations for four satellite deposits across the wider Indin Lake property – Kim, Cass, Treasure Island, and Damoti.

Combined, these deposits host 24.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 2.17 g/t (1.69 million oz) of gold.

Here is a breakdown of this resource by deposit:

• Cass hosts 3.98 million metric tons of open pit inferred resource averaging 2.36 g/t (302,000 oz) gold and 702,000 metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 2.05 g/t (46,000 oz) gold.

• Kim hosts 2.57 million metric tons of open pit inferred resource averaging 1.72 g/t (142,000) gold and 662,000 metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 1.88 g/t (40,000 oz) gold.

Click on image for larger Indin Lake map.

• Treasure Island hosts 962,000 metric tons of open pit inferred resource averaging 3.86 g/t (119,000 oz) gold and 857,000 metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 3.01 g/t (83,000 oz) gold.

• Damoti hosts 505,000 metric tons of open pit inferred resource averaging 4.13 g/t (67,000 oz) gold and 601,000 metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 2.6 g/t (50,000 oz) gold.

"We believe there is a massive potential for discovering more gold mineralization across our 930-kilometer-squared district-scale property," said Salehi. "All our deposits remain open in all directions and show great promise for further expansion in mineral resource ounces."

Nighthawk is currently finalizing its 2023 exploration plans for Indin Lake and expects to announce to provide details soon.

Author Bio

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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