Scorpio Gold (TSXV: SGN) is acquiring land in Nevada’s Manhattan mining district that adjoins the southwestern boundary of its Goldwedge property and includes two past-producing mines.
The acquisition of the Manhattan project property claims from Round Mountain Gold and KG Mining Inc. will give Scorpio Gold control of land around its Goldwedge project, which contains a fully permitted underground mine and 400 ton-per-day mill.
Goldwedge lies within the Walker Lane gold belt, about 16 km south of Kinross Gold’s (TSX: K; NYSE: KGC) Round Mountain mine. Round Mountain, an open-pit operation, produced 361,664 gold-equivalent ounces last year and has an expected mine life out to 2027. Round Mountain produced its 15 millionth ounce in 2018.Kinr
The new claims include the Reliance mine, about 600 metres from Goldwedge. The Reliance mine produced about 59,000 tonnes grading 0.44 oz. per ton between 1932 and 1941, Scorpio says. The new property also contains the Manhattan mine east and west pits, about 600 to 1,000 metres southwest of Goldwedge, and produced about 236,000 oz. gold between 1974 and 1990.
The deposits lie along the northwest-trending Reliance Fault zone and the Reliance trend continues four km southeast to Scorpio Gold’s Keystone-Jumbo project area, the company says.
“This acquisition will give Scorpio Gold complete land control around the Goldwedge facility, providing the opportunity to expand surface operations and the potential for expanding underground mining and exploration,” Chris Zerga, the company’s president, stated in a news release.
“It also consolidates a large land position along the Reliance Fault Zone, which has significant exploration potential for high-grade gold targets at the intersections of the Reliance structure and ring faulting related to the Manhattan Caldera.”
Over the last year Scorpio Gold’s shares have traded in a range of 5¢ and 13¢ and at presstime were trading at10¢.
The junior has about 69 million common shares outstanding for a market cap of about C$6.9 million.
(This article first appeared in The Northern Miner on July 20)