Golden holes lift Richfield Ventures

Vancouver – Richfield Ventures‘ (RVC-V) share price leapt up to a new all-time high on news of a 171-metre intercept grading 3.13 grams gold per tonne and 10.8 grams silver per tonne at the Blackwater gold project in central British Columbia.

Blackwater is home to a near surface, bulk tonnage, sulphide gold zone that Richfield is expanding as quickly as possible. The project does not yet carry a defined deposit but two drills have been turning on site since the spring and the company, having winterized its camp, plans to continue drilling until mid-December.

The hit in hole 91 is one of the best intercepts at Blackwater to date. The hole was collared just east of the middle of the zone, which currently strikes 1.1 km east-west and ranges in width from 500 to 700 metres. The 171-metre intercept started just 8 metres below surface and included 7 metres of 22.62 grams gold and 80 grams silver within the first 30 metres.

Richfield says drills are starting to delineate three zones of higher-grade gold within the mineralized envelope and hole 91 tapped into one of those zones. Earlier, hole 87 also hit the zone, returning 115 metres grading 2.59 grams gold and 4.1 grams silver from 50 metres to the north.

Some 400 metres to the east, on the edge of the zone, hole 90 also produced promising results: 148 metres grading 1.77 grams gold and 8.5 grams silver from 71 metres depth, followed by 39 metres grading 3.06 grams gold and 8.2 grams silver from 253 metres downhole.

A previous set of drill results, from early November, included several strong hits from the area between and just south of holes 91 and 90. Hole 79 returned 55 metres grading 1.21 grams gold and 9.9 grams silver from 17 metres downhole, followed by 104 metres averaging 0.97 gram gold and 3.2 grams silver from 197 metres depth. Hole 81 cut 171 metres grading 1.04 grams gold and 8.5 grams silver from 45 metres depth. And hole 83 hit 89 metres carrying 1.48 grams gold and 6.5 grams silver, starting 45 metres downhole and including 15 metres of 5.86 grams gold.

In addition to a steady stream of drill results, Richfield also announced the results of preliminary metallurgical testing on samples from Blackwater. Composite samples from three holes representing different rock and alteration types were subjected to three potential recovery processes and responded well to all three.

Direct whole ore cyanidation produced 92% gold recovery and 47% silver recovery. The best recoveries attained using various flotation tests was 94% for the precious metals. And direct gravity concentration alone was able to recover 51% of the contained gold.

Blackwater is 100 km south of Vanderhoof and is road accessible.

Richfield’s share price jumped 98¢ or 27.6% on news of the latest drill results to close at $4.53, a new high. In June the company’s shares were worth 87¢. Richfield has 38 million shares outstanding, 53 million fully diluted. The company is well financed, having raised $14.6 million in September in a private placement.