Midway Gold more than doubles Spring Valley resource

Midway Gold Corp. (MDW-T, MDW-X) has increased the inferred gold resource at its Spring Valley project in Nevada to 992,000 oz.

The latest resource estimate was calculated from 50.6 million tons of ore grading 0.56 gram gold per tonne.

Midway says that drilling has now identified a coherent gold zone that is about 1 sq. km., continuous to a depth of about 427 metres and open to the northeast, southwest and at depth.

The company expects to increase those numbers because the resource did not include gold discovered in the North Hill and West Diatreme areas.

“There is a significant amount of gold in the North Hill and West Diatreme areas that could not yet be included in this estimate because of a limited drill density or because certain zones have too much overburden,” said Midway’s president and CEO, Alan Branham.

As well, the company only included material occurring within a Lerchs-Grossman shell an economic test that simulates a break-even pit using current mining costs and in this case a gold price of US$650 per oz. to ensure that the resource would be economic to mine.

In February 2008, Midway plans to start a 27,000-metre drill program with a focus between the North Hill and Porphyry zones as well as the West Diatreme and Pond zones. The company will also do step-out drilling to the north and southwest.

The program will test at least eight new outlying gold and silver targets on the 47-sq.-mile property.

Midway shares rose 11 today to $3.46 on a trading volume of nearly 35,000 shares.