Premier’s Hardrock Project Returns Record Intercept

Step-out drilling in the North zone at Premier Gold Mines’ (PG-T, PIRGF-O) advanced-stage Hardrock project, near Geraldton, Ont., returned an intercept of 5.37 grams gold per tonne over 57.1 metres — a new record for the project.

The drilling included the deepest hole ever drilled to test the North zone horizon below the bottom level that was historically mined.

The North zone was previously mined to a depth of 616 metres and produced about 3 million tonnes at a recovered grade of 7.54 grams gold per ton.

Previous owners had mined along a 1-km plunge length. Since then, Premier has found that the mineralization stretches another 250 metres along that plunge below the bottom of the past-producing McLeod mine.

The Hardrock project hosts several past-producing mines, which collectively produced nearly 3 million oz. gold, primarily from shallow depths within 600 metres of surface, between 1938 and 1968.

Currently, Premier owns 70% of the Hardrock project and Goldstone Resources (GRC-T) holds a 30% carried interest.

Four drills are testing open-pit and underground targets. So far, drilling has confirmed that the North zone is wide open for expansion at depth.

Drillhole MM092 in the North zone, representing the first hole from which additional wedge holes will be drilled, and hole MM092A, the first wedge hole, intersected multiple lenses of mineralization.

Altogether the three zones assayed 5.37 grams per tonne gold across 57.1 metres. Sub-zone intervals cut 7.79 grams gold across 13.9 metres, 8.92 grams gold over 6 metres and 7.56 grams gold over 16 metres. Hole MM092A returned 7.59 grams gold across 23 metres with a higher-grade interval of 11.36 grams gold over 9.4 metres.

The results come from drilling that was deeper and along strike from the initial deep drilling, which returned multiple high-grade intercepts including 39.2 grams gold across 4.8 metres, 8.41 grams gold across 22.9 metres and 10.05 grams gold over 24.2 metres.

Premier’s first seven holes were designed to test the down-plunge potential of the mined portion of the North zone and all have intersected many zones of gold mineralization to 125 metres below the bottom of the mine.

The focus now is to expand open-pit zones and delineate underground- style zones that will be included in an updated NI 43-101 resource estimate at the end of the 2010 drill program.

Significant results so far at Hardrock include 15.97 grams gold across 32.1 metres and 4.13 grams gold across 18.9 metres in the Tenacity zone; 5.2 grams gold across 37 metres and 19 grams gold across 11.3 metres in the EP zone; 6.4 grams gold across 22.4 metres and 52.9 grams gold across 7.9 metres in the NN zone; and 1.47 grams gold across 162 metres and 2.16 grams gold across 92.2 metres in the Kailey zone. Drilling underground in the SP zone has returned intercepts including 6.6 grams gold across 32.6 metres and 9.7 grams gold across 11.8 metres.

Recent drilling has also intersected significant visible gold with intercepts including 1,141.5 grams gold across 2 metres and 49.8 grams gold across 6 metres.