In the 1960s, Newmont kicked off Nevada’s gold boom with a find on the Carlin Trend, which has now spawned the world’s third-richest gold mining district.
As it turns out, NV Gold Corporation (TSX-V:NVX, OTC:NVGLF) has built a prized portfolio of 21 properties in Nevada, with 639 mining claims totaling 53.4 square kilometers.
Nevada's gold deposits are found in three major northwest-trending belts: the Carlin trend, the Battle Mountain-Eureka-Cortez trend, and the Walker Lane trend, which continue to yield copious quantities of the yellow metal.
“We have properties in all three major trends. One of our best prospects, the one we are focusing on now, is our SW Pipe gold project, an asset right in the central Cortez gold trend,” NV Gold CEO John Seaberg told Proactive.
“It’s four miles from the large Nevada Gold Mines complex created by the Newmont and Barrick joint venture. Their Cortez and Pipeline Gold Mine are multimillion ounce deposits. Our proximity to these massive gold deposits on the Cortez makes SW Pipe a prime candidate to be the next multimillion-ounce gold discovery in Nevada.”
Armed with an MBA degree, Seaberg went to work for accounting giant Arthur Anderson, and by chance it catapulted him into mining.
“It was my first job out of college. Newmont, which has a lot of assets in Nevada, was my client. I spent a lot of time in Nevada around their mining operations. I like hard assets so when Newmont offered me a job in their finance team I jumped! The rest is history,” said Seaberg.
The mining industry veteran has since worked in Klondex Mines, been the CFO at Calibre Mining and the executive chairman of Paramount Gold Nevada.
The chosen three
NV Gold’s laser focus on drill priorities in 2023 has a good deal to do with how Seaberg, a brilliant tactician, has shaped the company strategy.
Instead of spreading itself thin, the Vancouver-based exploration company with seven active projects in Nevada, will now prioritize only three gold projects — SW Pipe, Slumber and Triple T.
“Since coming on board in mid-2022, I've refocused the company. It’s really three projects that we're focusing on in the near-term for our 2023 drill program,” said Seaberg.
“We're a small company. We have to be disciplined, focused and prudent with our allocation of money, people, and time. The team has now refocused itself on three of our most prospective projects — first SW Pipe, then Slumber and finally Triple T. This is a restart, a refresh for NV Gold.”
Seaberg’s financial discipline and clear strategy has resonated with the company’s growing investor base.
“We have a project pipeline that highlights our active projects. We are not wasting time (and) money on projects that have a lower probability of success. We will continue to prune the portfolio,” said Seaberg.
“We will look to JV properties or farm them out or lease them to be efficient. I'm not the geologist, but I'm in charge of the bank account and capital allocation. We will focus on our best properties. We think the ones we're working on right now are winners.”
SW Pipe gold project
NV Gold which has its own risk model has ranked its flagship SW Pipe gold project as “medium risk, very high reward.”
SW Pipe has 84 mining claims and historical drilling has established a near-surface oxide-gold zone characterized by multiple intercepts of 15 meters at 0.5-to-1 gram per ton (g/t) gold (Au).
The company has submitted a notice of intent to drill-test a Carlin-type gold deposit on the SW Pipe project in the first quarter of 2023.
“We have one or two drill holes planned. We received the approval from the Bureau of Land Management, so the property is fully permitted and drill ready,” said Seaberg.
“We've done geochemical and geophysical work and identified what we think is the real target — in the Dilation zone — right on strike of the Pipeline gold mine. The technical data supports where our drill hole is going to be. We should have a drill turning in a couple of weeks.”
NV Gold is not hiding its high expectations.
“A multimillion-ounce Carlin-type gold deposit like Pipeline and Cortez — that’s really what we're chasing,” said Seaberg with palpable excitement.
Slumber gold project
The firm’s Slumber gold project is considered “low risk, medium reward.”
A technical update for Slumber, which is 36 km west of the Sleeper gold deposit in Nevada’s Humboldt County, has identified an estimated exploration target of approximately 450,000 ounces of gold. The Slumber deposit, modelled by independent geologist Jesse Wellman, has successfully delineated a substantial near-surface, oxide gold system at the property.
"The Slumber project checks most of the boxes of a textbook volcanic-hosted epithermal style gold setting,” said geologist Wellman.
“This should be an exciting project exploring and developing the full picture of what appears to be a primarily covered, potentially intact, well-mineralized gold system.”
The current target is an untested, wide-open zone of resistivity in the northern extent of the property. The 2023 drill program is scheduled to start in 2Q 2023 and consists of three to six RC holes to test for a potentially "Sleeper-type" gold deposit.
“A couple of more shallow holes are planned at Slumber. We announced a 450,000 ounce exploration target that we had an independent geologist pull together based on 26 drill holes. It's a different gold system than SW Pipe,” said Seaberg.
“It's lower grade, but it's all oxide and it's over a kilometer in strike so it could be like the open pit Sleeper Mine. This gold producer belongs to Paramount Gold and is a multimillion-ounce heap leachable oxide deposit. We think Slumber could be the same.”
Triple T gold project
Triple T is in the Humboldt Range close to the Rochester silver-gold operation and 42 km southeast of the Florida Canyon goldmine. NV Gold has received approval for 10 RC holes and drilling is expected to start later this year.
“Triple T is a higher grade oxide target. We've already permitted 10 RC holes. We will probably get to that drill program in the third quarter,” added Seaberg.
Gleaming opportunities
The NV Gold Data Library has strong street credibility. In 2016, NV Gold acquired the database when it bought the Red Star Company. Red Star had acquired the data from AngloGold Ashanti (ASX:AGG), USMX and Canyon Resources. Multiple programs generated the data over 40 years at a historical cost of US$20 million.
GoldSpot handled the legacy data inventory and identified 31 targets using its artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
“It's all about exploration with data coming from 70,000 rock chip and soil samples. The extensive database is worth a lot of money. For a junior company to have this data is fantastic and gives us a competitive advantage,” noted Seaberg.
“Goldspot put it in their AI system, did their magic and identified 31 new targets in Nevada that we're currently assessing. There's a Top 10, Middle 10 and Lower 11 if you will. As soon as we get additional resources, we'll sift through the targets. The ones that we like, we will feed into our pipeline. We don't own these properties, or more specifically these targets yet. We will stake the ones that we find most interesting.”
Would NV Gold be open to selling the intelligence?
“Yes, we would consider it. Obviously, valuation is going to be the issue. We think it's worth a lot,” said Seaberg.
He noted that NV Gold is extremely undervalued as it owns an exceptional portfolio and a valuable data library.
“The market hasn’t been good for most junior exploration companies. But we are seeing gold prices tick-up which is great as a rising tide lifts all boats,” said Seaberg.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive