The Canadian Markets Are Starting To Recognize The Past Success And Future Potential Of Evolving Gold
By Daina Lawrence and Alastair Ford
minesite.com
Evolving Gold’s chief executive Bob Barker exudes confidence and enthusiasm when he talks about his company, its upcoming projects, as well as its past successes. The company is currently getting on with work down on projects on the Carlin Trend and on the Rattlesnake Hills property Wyoming. And the work hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. The company was recently recognized as part of the elite ‘2010 TSX Venture Top 50’, a national award that pays tribute to high growth, emerging businesses. “It’s very satisfying to be recognized for what we are trying to do in the industry, which is to build real quality for our shareholders”, says Barker.
Rattlesnake Hills, a 10,000 acre property in Natrona County, Wyoming is currently the main focus for the company, and, with the recent drill results that have been coming in, it’s not hard to see why. Among the best of the latest intercepts were 158 metres at 2.64 grammes per tonne gold, and 115 metres at 1.35 grammes per tonne, and 117 metres at 1.2 grammes per tonne. “What we are focusing on is on drilling off the extensions of the known zones of mineralization,” explains Barker. And for the upcoming season, the company is planning on putting three or four core drill rigs on the property in the coming months to complete about 20,000 metres of drilling.
The company will also embark on metallurgical work and baseline studies this year. “We are just trying to prepare and move this forward as quickly as we can”, says Barker. Company literature likens Rattlesnake Hills to the legendary 27 million ounce Cripple Creek gold deposits in Colorado, in that both are located on what’s termed the greater Rocky Mountain “alkalic” gold province, which stretches from British Columbia to Mexico. Given the similarity of the setting to Cripple Creek, it’s perhaps not surprising to learn that this isn’t the first time that the project’s been looked at.
In the past Newmont and American Copper and Nickel Company (ACNC) have had a look around at Rattlesnake Hills, and both stuck some drill holes in during the 1990s. But the price of gold hasn’t always been at the US$1,100 mark, and Newmont has had plenty of other fish to fry over the years. Serious work languished as the gold price stagnated in the early part of the millennium, until the supercycle and the global financial crisis intervened. Still, it’s worth knowing that the old Newmont data has held up well, and that all the holes Newmont drilled ended in mineralisation.
Evolving Gold picked up the property from a company called Golden Predator Mines in a deal that was struck in the later part of 2007 and was closed off in 2008. In 2008 the company sunk just over 6,500 metres worth of drill holes into the property, a programme that was followed in 2009 by a much more extensive 30,000 metre programme.
But even as the plans for the 2010 campaign are laid, Bob Barker is keen to stress that from here on in not all of the activity will be in Wyoming. “Rattlesnake Hills has been about 85 per cent of our focus up to now, but we are going to ramp up our focus on the Carlin trend properties”, he says Barker. The next stretch of work will include another deep drill hole on the 80,000 acre site.
Although the Carlin trend properties haven’t been making the running recently, they are a clear fit into the company’s overall strategy. “We are focusing on very stable North American locations. We have focused on Rattlesnake and Carlin trend because they clearly have the potential to be multi-million ounce gold deposits, and for major success and production”, says Bob Barker. Names like the Carlin trend and Cripple Creek are certainly ones that can’t be lightly dismissed in the world of mining, and there’s no disputing that the jurisdications are safe ones. But there’s a lot yet still to prove. Evolving Gold has set its sights high, and it’ll be interesting to see if it can deliver the goods in 2010. |
