Endurance Gold (TSXV:EDG) announced on Monday a 67% increase in the size of its Reliance property in southern British Columbia, from the initial 673 hectares up to 1,122 hectares.
The property is located 4 kilometres east of the village of Gold Bridge, and 10 kilometres north of the historic Bralorne-Pioneer gold mining camp which produced over 4 million ounces of gold.
Concurrent with the increase, Endurance executed an option agreement. Under the terms of the original agreement completed in September 2019, the company can earn a 100% interest in the property for cash consideration in the aggregate amount of C$300,000 to be paid over five years, the allotment and issuance of up to a total of 4 million common shares of the company (by December 31, 2025) and exploration expenditures in the aggregate amount of C$3 million to be incurred by December 31, 2024.
Prior to the agreement, the company paid C$10,000 and issued 200,000 shares to the optionor. The agreement is subject to a 2.5% net smelter return royalty (NSR), of which 1.5% NSR can be purchased by the company at any time for C$1 million. Endurance Gold also acquired a 20-hectare claim from a third party and this claim will be included in the agreement.
The Reliance property was previously explored with trenching and diamond drilling from 1985 through 2008.
In December 2019, the company announced encouraging surface sampling results from the Reliance gold property. Sampling efforts were largely focused on the Royal Shear and recent assay results have confirmed encouraging gold results on surface. Highlights of the results include 10 grams per tonne (gpt) gold over 5 m at the Imperial zone and 4.6 gpt gold over 2 m at the Senator zone prospects.
The last drilling program in 2008 targeted the Imperial zone, and returned highlight drill intersection widths of 13.30 gpt gold over 4.20 m (est 1.8m true width), 7.05 gpt gold over 5.06 m (est 2.05 m true width), 5.70 gpt gold over 12.05 m (est 9.5 m true width), 5.43 gpt gold over 15.35 m (est 10 m true width), and 2.16 gpt gold over 12.13 m (est 6.5 m true width), in five drill holes.
Midday Monday, Endurance Gold’s shares were up over 28% on the TSX Venture Exchange. The company has a C$9.9 million market capitalization.