GOLD STOCKS NEWS – Gold stocks climbed Tuesday morning, as the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) advanced $1.15, or 2.1% to $56.03 per share. The rally in gold stocks and the GDX came as gold bullion rose $10.24 to $1,372.85 amid continued weakness in the U.S. dollar. The S&P/TSX Global Gold Index, a basket of gold stocks in Canada, moved higher alongside the GDX, with a 1.4% gain to 382.91.
While gold stocks and the GDX posted gains, gold stocks in the news Tuesday included Corvus Gold (KOR.TSX), which rallied as much as 6.1% to C$0.87 per share after announcing the discovery of two new gold targets at its Chisna Project in south-central Alaska. The Canadian-based gold company reported that results from surface exploration in 2010 have established the Golden Range target, where bedrock values of up to 50.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and soil values of up to 6.5 g/t gold have been encountered along a 9 kilometer-long zone of extensive gossanous iron carbonate alteration. Southwest Grubstake, the second target discovered, consists of a series of parallel quartz-dolomite-barite veins up to 2 meters wide defined over a 600 meter-long trend, which contain metal values from rock chip sampling of up to 46.5 g/t gold, 17.9 g/t silver, 1.3% lead and 0.19% zinc.
Corvus Gold noted that The Golden Range target will be a priority during the 2011 Chisna exploration program – made up of detailed geological mapping, expansion of bedrock and soil sampling grids, and drill target definition. At Southwest Grubstake, mapping of vein lengths and density, and determination of the relationship between this veined mineralization and the adjacent Grubstake copper-gold porphyry system will be a principal aspect of 2011 exploration in advance of drilling.
Corvus Gold’s Chisna Project is concentrating on a new and emerging Alaskan copper-gold porphyry belt of deposits with copper and gold mineralization associated with mid-Cretaceous intrusions of similar age to the Pebble deposit to the west and Orange Hill deposit to the east. The company and its predecessor-in-title, International Tower Hill Mines (ITH.TSX) – one of the best performing gold stocks over the past two years – commenced exploration on the project in 2006. Corvus was later spun-out as a separate company in 2010, and it too has since been one of the top performers in the gold stocks sector.
Chisna has since been operated as a joint venture between Raven Gold Alaska, a subsidiary of Corvus, and Ocean Park Alaska, a subsidiary of Ocean Park Ventures (OCP.TSXV). Under the terms of the joint venture, Ocean Park can earn a 51% interest by contributing $20 million in exploration expenditures over five years. Ocean Park can earn an additional 19% interest by producing a bankable feasibility that delineates a mining project on the Chisna property that produces a minimum of 300,000 gold equivalent ounces per year. Ocean Park is developing a 2011 exploration program budgeted at $2.3 million, comprised of a combination of drilling and new target definition.
Other notable gold stocks posting gains this morning included GDX components Yamana Gold (AUY), Barrick Gold (ABX), and Newmont Mining (NEM). Shares of AUY, ABX, and NEM advanced 1.7%, 1.9%, and 1.6%, respectively.
