Kinsley

It's been a quiet year for Mark O'Dea's Pilot Gold (PLG-T) on the Kinsley Mountain front, but this morning the company released an initial resource estimate for the 79% owned Nevada deposit.

For all types of mineralization, the company reported a total resource of 405,000 oz indicated at average grades of 2.27 g/t Au, as well as 122,000 oz inferred at 1.13 g/t. Most of the material is sulphide, but includes 76,000 near-surface oxide ounces, indicated, and 46,000 oz inferred.

The stock was down slightly on low volume, to 37.5 cents, in early trading after the news.

The resource includes 284,000 ounces at grades of 6 g/t on the high-grade Western Flank.

Stated Matt Lennox-King, President and CEO: “With a large number of untested targets with attributes similar to the Western Flank Zone, we believe that this resource represents a stepping stone along the way to defining a much larger gold endowment at Kinsley. From north to south, we have over 12 km of prospective geology, alteration and geochemical targets to explore. We are confident that the Western Flank is one of many high-grade zones of its type at Kinsley and we are aggressively pursuing the next one.”

Pilot Gold shares have been selling off all year after hitting $1.20 in January as news flow from Kinsley slowed to a trickle. Prior to publication of the resource estimate, the latest Kinsley news had been drill results in June and metallurgical results in July.

Expectations were high that Mark O'Dea's team, which sold Fronteer Gold and its Long Canyon deposit to Newmont for $2.3 billion in 2011, could strike Nevada gold again with Pilot, a Fronteer spinoff. But it now looks like Kinsley, located south of Long Canyon, will require more patience from shareholders - a big ask in these markets.

Pilot Gold is also advancing its TV Tower and Halilaga projects in Turkey, both of them joint ventures with Teck.

As of June 30, Pilot had cash and equivalents of $8.7 million and working capital of $13.7 million.

Pilot's 21% partner on Kinsley is Nevada Sunrise (NEV-V), which diversified into lithium in September with the purchase of the Neptune lithium property in Clayton Valley, Nevada. Nevada Sunrise followed that up by optioning two more Nevada lithium properties on Oct. 7.

NR: Pilot Gold reports high-grade gold resource estimate for Kinsley project

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