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Canada’s Japan Gold Corp (TSX-V:JG) is growing its portfolio in the Pacific nation with the acquisition of three new projects, comprising a total of 23,400 acres near current and past-producing gold mines in the country’s south.
The Vancouver-based miner said the land package, which covers 76 applications in the Southern Kyushu Epithermal Gold Province, takes the total number of projects it currently has in Japan to 18.
The new assets are located near current and past-producing mines, such as Hishikari, which produced 7.6 million ounces at average grades of 30 to 40 grams of gold per ton (g/t) when it was operational.
The new assets are located near current and past-producing gold mines in the Southern Kyushu Epithermal Gold Province
Similar grades were mined at other projects in the region, including at the Yamagano operation, which churned out almost one million ounces at 17.4 g/t gold during its mine-life.
In total, the Southern Epithermal Gold Province has produced over 11 million ounces of gold.
The company also said the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has accepted the new applications, allowing Japan Gold to commence surface exploration.
At the same time, the miner is ditching most of its copper-gold lithocap projects in the region, except the Kamitsue project in Kyushu, which hosts a gold-rich porphyry system believed to have potential for shallow mineralization.
Japan closed all of its gold mines during World War II, reallocating workers to base metal mines and factories. After the war, it only re-opened 12 of the 76 mines it used to have.
It wasn’t until 2012 that the country let foreign mining companies come to its shores for the first time in its history.
