Newmont funds Grayd’s drill program at La India

Vancouver – A drill program funded by Newmont Mining (NMC-T, NEM-N) and operated by Grayd Resource (GYD-V) has returned encouraging results from the La India project in Mexico’s Sonora state, including an 85.3-metre intersection grading 2.6 grams gold per tonne.

Newmont is funding the program as part of an agreement to earn a 51% interest in the project by spending US$7 million on exploration and development over a four-year period. The senior gold company can boost its interest to 70% by completing a bankable feasibility study.

Grayd is operating the project for the first two years of the earn-in agreement. La India is a district-scale, high-sulphidation epithermal prospect with multiple targets in the Sierra Madre belt. The prospective belt hosts numerous producing mines and advanced projects, including the Mulatos gold project situated 6 km from La India. Grayd notes that La India is underlain “by the same geology, alteration, and mineralization style that occurs at Alamos Gold’s Mulatos project.”

Grayd drilled two of the recent reverse-circulation drill holes in the Viruela-La Cruz area, including the aforementioned 85.3-metre intersection of 2.6 grams gold, which also returned an average of 15.4 grams silver. The true width is not yet known. A previous hole drilled in 1992 in the same location ended in the mineralized zone, and returned 5.3 metres of 3.95 grams gold. A 1995 hole collared about 45 metres to the northeast also ended in mineralization, and returned 2.24 grams gold over the last 27.5 metres of the hole.

Two other holes completed late last year tested the Puertos area situated 2.4 km southeast of Viruela-La Cruz, but returned low-grade values, ranging from 0.01 gram to 0.32 gram gold.

Grayd plans to resume drilling in late January, and the Viruela-La Cruz area will be a priority target. Others targets will be tested within the estimated 10-km-long strike length of prospective geology.

The company also holds the Seel copper-gold-silver project in central British Columbia, and the Delta volcanogenic massive sulphide project in Alaska’s Delta district.