Drill to turn at White Gold

Vancouver — Placer Dome (PDG-T) and Grayd Resources (GYD-V) are gearing up to launch a 1,200-metre drill program over the prospective White Gold property near Tok, Alaska.

Placer is funding the program as part of its deal to earn up to a 70% stake in the property.

Earlier in the year, the major inked an agreement to earn a 51% interest by spending US$3.1 million over four years. Of this total, US$350,000 must be spent this year. The company can pick up an additional 19% interest by completing a bankable feasibility study.

Grayd will remain project operator this year and Placer will assume the role in 2002.

Grayd acquired the 45-sq.-km property, which was previously known as Rumble Creek, in 1999 from American Copper and Nickel, a wholly owned subsidiary of Inco (N-T).

In 1996, American Copper identified an 8-km-long trend of gold-bearing, quartz-carbonate shear zones over the claims.

The drill program, which is expected to start this week, will test five target areas:

• The Low-Flicka trend — at the Low showing, channel samples returned 8.6 grams gold over 9.8 metres and grab samples returned up to 61.4 grams gold, while channel samples at the Flicka showing yielded 2.2 grams gold over 2.7 metres;
• The Goldberg Area — soil samples returned up to 4.1 grams gold and talus grab samples returned up to 23 grams gold;
• The Hunter Showing — channel samples returned 9.6 grams gold over 6.3 metres;
• The HD Area — A gold-antimony-arsenic soil anomaly over 2.3 km, where trench values returned up to 3.9 grams gold over 16.4 metres; and
• The Kokanee trend — a 2-km-long gold-in-soil anomaly with subcrop returning up to 5.2 grams gold.