High-grade gold results lift Atac

Shares of Atac Resources (ATC-V) climbed nearly 10% after the prominent Yukon explorer released more results from its wholly-owned Rackla gold project, 55 km northeast of Keno City.

Atac published results from another 23 holes it completed at the Conrad and Isis East zones within the Nadaleen trend in the eastern corner of its sizeable project in central Yukon.

The company announced the best hole to date at Conrad, which hit 18.44 grams gold per tonne over 42.9 metres. A notable intercept from the Isis East zone, which lies 1.5 km southeast of Conrad, returned 27.4 metres grading 4.45 grams gold.

The Vancouver-based junior says drilling on Conrad’s high-grade near-surface area continues to expand and show continuity of gold mineralization.

To find the limits of the zone, the company has four drills turning along strike to the east and west. It has another two rigs probing its other targets within the Nadaleen trend.  

The Conrad and Isis East zones are two of the five drill-confirmed Carlin-type gold discoveries the company has made within a 3-by-4 km area on the Nadaleen trend. The other targets include the Osiris, Isis and Amon zones.

The recent drill results are part of the first phase of Atac’s two-phase 2012 drill campaign. The junior plans to complete roughly 30,000 metres on its 1,600-sq.-km Rackla project this year. In mid-July, it finished drilling 15,000 metres in 58 holes on the Conrad, Isis and Isis East zones.

Earlier that month, it announced a $15.6-million private placement to help continue exploration on the 185-km-long gold property.

Along with expanding known mineralization, the company will follow-up on a number of targets it identified through geochemical surveys last year.

In 2011, it spent $25 million largely to complete 32,500 metres in 118 holes and construct four all-season camps and two air strips.

Last October, it published its first resource estimate on the project’s Tiger gold deposit within the Rau trend. At a 0.3 gram gold cut-off, the deposit hosts oxide plus sulphide resources of 508,000 oz. gold in indicated, and 290,200 oz. gold in inferred.

Tiger was the company’s previous focus of exploration and drilling before it stumbled upon the Carlin-type gold deposits in late 2010 within the Nadaleen trend, 100 km to the east. After that, the Tiger deposit, which hosts carbonate-replacement style gold mineralization, was placed on the back burner.

Atac released its first 10 holes from this year’s drill program on July 18. Highlights from Conrad included 46 metres grading 11.24 grams gold and 40.3 metres at 10.10 grams gold. Notable intercepts from the Isis East zone returned 24.4 metres of 5.58 grams gold and 21.6 metres of 5.11 grams gold.

On Aug. 21, the stock gained 9.4% or 24¢ to close at $2.80 a share.