Livengood results lift International Tower Hill (July 14, 2008)

International Tower Hill Mines president and CEO Jeff Pontius (right) discusses drill core from the Money Knob deposit with newsletter writer Bob Moriarty. Money Knob is part of the Livengood gold project, located about 100 km north of Fairbanks, Alaska.International Tower Hill Mines president and CEO Jeff Pontius (right) discusses drill core from the Money Knob deposit with newsletter writer Bob Moriarty. Money Knob is part of the Livengood gold project, located about 100 km north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

VANCOUVER — A long, well-mineralized intercept from its Livengood gold project in Alaska had International Tower Hill Mines (ITH-V, THM-X) up as much as 35% in recent trading.

Results from the first seven holes drilled this year at Livengood include 199.6 metres grading 1.38 grams gold per tonne starting at just 10.7 metres depth. The long interval, in hole 8, included a shorter 30.5-metre section of 4.11 grams gold. An infill hole, hole 8 was collared near the southeast corner of the Lillian zone.

From the eastern edge of the zone, roughly 100 metres northeast of hole 8, hole 1 cut 65.5 metres averaging 1.56 grams gold from 139 metres down-hole. Near the middle of the zone, hole 7 cut 45.7 metres grading 1.43 grams gold from 25 metres depth followed by 59.4 metres of 1.96 grams gold from 128 metres down-hole.

And stepout hole 5, collared past the western edge of the zone, returned 1.63 grams gold over 32 metres from surface.

The drill results lifted Tower Hill 31, or 25%, to close at $1.56. The company has a 52-week trading range of $1.19-3.10 and has 39.9 million shares issued.

The Lillian zone is the 2-sq.-km portion of the project that has been explored to date; the deposit that it hosts is called Money Knob. Tower Hill emphasizes that the Lillian zone covers only about one-quarter of the area of known mineralization at Livengood, leaving significant potential for Money Knob to grow.

To that end, the 2008 drill program is a combination of infill holes to upgrade the inferred resource and stepout holes to expand it. Results to date have already expanded the deposit to the west, north and south and increased the size of the high-grade core. The deposit re- mains open in all directions.

Indeed, the recent results represent some of the best drill intersections returned from the property to date. Many recent intercepts show greater length and grade than those used in calculating the February resource estimate, which came in at 188 million inferred tonnes grading 0.54 gram gold for 3.3 million contained ounces, using a 0.3-gram gold cutoff.

The 2008 program will test an area three times the size of the Lillian zone, using two reverse-circulation drills and one diamond drill. Tower Hill expects to complete 25 holes each month until December. Midway through the program, the company will commission an updated resource estimate for release in the fall.

Mineralization at Livengood is hosted in both sedimentary and volcanic units from surface — it outcrops at surface — to the current drill depth of roughly 250 metres. The deposit is thought to be related to the same Cretaceous magnetic event that produced the Pogo and Fort Knox deposits. The Pogo mine is owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining and Teck Cominco (TCK. B-T, TCK-N); the Fort Knox mine is held by Kinross Gold (K-T, KGC-N).

Indeed, the Livengood inventory compares closely — in size and grade — to the Fort Knox mine some 50 km southeast, where Kinross has proven and probable reserves of 160 million tonnes averaging 0.53 gram gold.

Situated just off the paved Elliot Highway and along the Trans Alaskan Pipeline Corridor, Livengood has good logistics and infrastructure potential should it move to development. The project is 85 km north of the Alaska State power grid by road.

In other Tower Hill news, the company just inked an agreement to take over AngloGold Ashanti’s (AU-N, AGD-L) remaining interests in the Terra and LMS project, also in Alaska. In exchange for 450,000 shares, valued at just over $750,000, Tower Hill gets Anglo’s 40% interests in Terra and LMS. The deal brings Anglo’s ownership in Tower Hill up to 16% from 15%.

Terra is a high-grade gold-silver system located some 200 km west of Anchorage, that hosts an inferred resource of 428,000 tonnes grading 12.2 grams gold and 23.11 grams silver per tonne, using a 5-gram gold cutoff. The resource currently represents only a portion of one of four high-grade vein systems defined along a 5-km-long belt.

The LMS project is 40 km south of the Pogo mine. An initial inferred resource of 9.7 million tonnes grading 0.61 gram gold is confined to one of five gold targets along a 6- km-long mineralized trend.

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