THE GLOBAL SEARCH FOR GOLD SPECIAL — Junior raises $40 million to explore Nevada’s prolific gold trends

Newly listed Oro Nevada Resources (ONV-A) has raised $40 million to acquire, explore, develop and mine properties situated on Nevada’s Battle Mountain and Carlin trends.

While this size of exploration budget rivals that of some majors, Oro Nevada President Robert Jones points out that his company either owns, leases or has staked a total of 348,000 acres on these prolific gold trends. “This substantially exceeds the acreage position of any junior company in the area, and is an equivalent acreage to the area’s largest major mining companies.”

The Toronto-based company says it already has identified several promising exploration targets at its main holdings: Dean Ranch and Nevada First Ranches.

The former consists of 48,437 acres owned by Oro Nevada on the Battle Mountain trend, which hosts the Cortez, Gold Acres, Pipeline, South Pipeline and other deposits. In addition to this privately owned land, the junior staked an additional 44,606 acres of federally owned land within, and adjacent to, the Ranch, for a total of 94,043 acres.

Jones says targets on the Dean Ranch include a large sinter-cap at Hand-Me-Down Creek, “which is an immediate target for geological mapping, geophysical surveying and drilling”.

A 20,000-ft. program is expected to start shortly.

Meanwhile, at Nevada First Ranches, several drill targets have been identified in the West Snowstorm Mountains and in Anderson Canyon, adjacent to the Getchell gold mine. Drilling will start later this year, once results from mapping and geophysical work are in hand.

Nevada First Ranches comprises 179,252 acres of privately owned land (leased by the company), plus an additional 75,776 acres which Oro Nevada acquired nearby through staking. The land package is divided into several parcels, covering ground on the Carlin, Battle Mountain and Getchell trends.

Oro Nevada also holds ground adjacent to the Midas joint-venture discovery and the Twin Creeks, Sleeper and Pinson deposits.

Oro Nevada’s Chairman is Michael Farrugia, a financier also involved in founding General Minerals (GNM-T), an exploration company active in South America. He is also involved with Southeast Asian explorers, South Pacific Resources (SHF-T) and Scorpion Metals (SCP-T).