Newmont funds drilling at Longline gold property

A 3,000-metre drill program is under way on Barramundi Gold‘s (BAM-A) Longline project in west-central Yukon.

The program is being operated and funded by a Canadian unit of Newmont Mining (NEM-N), which recently raised $500,000 by purchasing 1.7 million units of Barramundi at 30 cents each. A unit consists of one flow-through share and three-quarters of a flow-through warrant at an exercise price of 40 cents. Upon exercising these warrants, Newmont will have the right to earn a 51% interest in the project by spending $4 million over five years and a further 29% by spending an additional $15 million or completing a bankable feasibility study by 2010.

Previous work by Barramundi identified at least four sets of narrow, shallow-dipping, sheeted quartz veins. Drilling in 1998 and early 1999 tested the grade and continuity of the V2 vein system. Results included 386.6 grams gold per tonne over 0.66 metre, 97.96 grams over 0.64 metre, 45.15 grams over 0.45 metre and 61.43 grams over 0.2 metre.

A recent induced-polarization survey identified anomalies similar to those identified on the Pogo project, 300 km to the northwest. Barramundi believes the project has the right ingredients to host the next significant discovery in the Tintina gold belt.

Newmont controls 60 sq. miles in the Circle mining district, near Fairbanks, Alaska, as well as exploration land around the Pogo area and now about 90 sq. miles in the Yukon.

The initial drill target is a large-scale coincidental geochemical and geophysical anomaly.