Fortress looks to Russia’s Far East

Getting to Fortress Minerals’ (FST-V, FTMNF-o) flagship Svetloye property, in Russia’s Far East, isn’t easy. The gold project lies 750 km west of Magadan, a port city on the sea of Okhotsk, where the harbor is frozen nearly eight months of the year and the city rests on frozen subsoil.

Supplies and personnel are typically flown to Svetloye on commercial aircraft, a 1,300-km route from Khabarovsk to Okhotsk, and then transported by helicopter to the site. A winter road can only be used from December through March.

But clearly, Fortress Minerals thinks the property is well worth the effort. Highlights from six recent drill holes at Svetloye’s Amy prospect included one interval of 91 metres grading 2.67 grams gold per tonne and another that cut 52.2 metres grading 2.97 grams gold. The Amy prospect is one of nine within the 86.4-sq.-km Svetloye exploration licence.

So far, resources have been estimated for just three of the nine mineralized zones: Elena, Amy and Tamara. Data suggest that the project has an inferred resource of roughly 16.23 million tonnes, grading 2.11 grams gold per tonne for total contained gold of 1.1 million oz. The resource was calculated on the basis of 123 drill holes totalling 18,557 metres and more than 7,000 samples.

Fortress has mapped more than 17 sq. km of alteration within the licence area, which lies in the basin of the Alalindya and Onemna rivers, both of which are tributaries of the Ulenma River. The alteration areas consist of a northwesterly trending belt across the project territory that is about 10 km long by up to 4 km wide.

Most of the mineralization is at surface on hilltops, the company says.

Gold mineralization at Svetloye was formed by a high-sulphidation epithermal system and is associated with zones of vuggy silica, quartz-alunite and quartz-dickite-kaolinite alteration.

The style of mineralization is similar to Barrick Gold’s (ABX-T, ABX-n) Pierina gold mine in the Andean Cordillera of north-central Peru, and of its Veladero gold mine, in Argentina’s San Juan province.

Fortress currently owns the project outright, with Gazprombank holding an option to acquire a 51% interest. Gazprombank is the banking arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Svetloye is about 260 km southwest of Polymetal’s (PMTL-l) Khakanja low-sulphidation gold-silver mine, which has been in production since 2004.

In August, Fortress reported that a company insider had agreed to provide a $4-million loan at an interest rate of prime plus 2% for short-term working capital purposes.

As a condition, the lender will receive a bonus payment of 1.05 million shares in Fortress.

Apart from Svetloye, Fortress has acquired a 100% stake in the Dubaki exploration licence, 20 km northeast. The company also has properties in Mongolia and Nicaragua.