As it continues the engineering and design work for the next phase of its operations in northern Nevada, Hycroft Mining Corp. said it will be conducting the largest exploration program at its Hycroft mine in nearly a decade. There has been no exploration drilling at Hycroft since 2014 and, prior to that, drilling was focused on step-out drilling from the known pits for heap leach operations. The company said it will spend $15 – $20 million on an exploration campaign that will focus on higher-grade opportunities identified in its 2021 program.
For the first time, Hycroft will use a systematic approach to understanding the genesis of what they believe is a world-class scale deposit, including potential feeder systems. Hycroft is a low-sulphidation, epithermal system with numerous banded quartz veins similar to Midas-style mineralization yet the company said there has been no prior focus on understanding these veins and what they may mean to potential feeder systems.
The 2022 – 2023 Hycroft exploration program will comprise approximately 125,000 feet of reverse circulation (RC) drilling and approximately 20,000 feet of core drilling. The RC drill rig is on site and the core drill rig is expected to arrive on site later in July. The RC drilling is being conducted by National EWP Inc. of Elko, Nev., and the core drilling will be conducted by First Drilling LLC of Montrose, Colo.
“From the 2021 metallurgical drill program, we observed that high-grade mineralization occurs at the intersection of the steeply dipping north-south trending faults and the east-west faults,” said Alex Davidson, vice president-exploration for Hycroft. “These geologic controls of the higher-grade mineralization that are known at Hycroft are similar to structures seen at the historic high-grade, past-producing Rosebud gold mine, which is surrounded by our land position. We believe that there remains untapped potential at Hycroft.”
The results of this exploration program, together with the 2021 metallurgical drill program results will be used for the geologic modelling, updated resource models and mine planning activities associated with the technical studies underway for the sulphide mill operation.
