Pershing Gold Increases Relief Canyon Resources By 34 Percent

Pershing Gold (NASDAQ:PGLC) reported an upgraded resource estimate for its Relief Canyon project in Nevada. Measured and Indicated resources for the project have increased 34 percent to 739,000 ounces, while inferred resources now stand at 70,000 ounces of gold.
As quoted in the press release:

Pershing Gold has identified an Inferred Resource of 24,000 ounces of gold in an historic stockpile located just southwest of the existing pits.  The gold ounces remaining in the stockpile, which are included in the tabulation of Inferred-Oxide Resource shown in Table 1, are the result of much higher cutoff grades used by past operators. Gold-bearing material from this stockpile is planned to be processed in the first year of production at Relief Canyon.
The Company is currently in the process of executing its 2015 drilling program, which is planned to include 100 core holes and approximately 75,000 feet (nearly 23,000 meters) of drilling.   Pershing Gold currently has two core rigs drilling on site and expects to add two additional drill rigs later this week.  The third core-drill rig will be operating in the Jasperoid Target Area.  The fourth drill rig will be working on the Buffalo Pediment, an exploration target located approximately one and a half miles north of the existing pits.  The Relief Canyon deposit remains open in all directions. The Company plans to incorporate the results of this aggressive 2015 drilling program into a further updated NI 43-101 resource estimate upon completing of the 2015 program.
With the completion of the upgraded resource Pershing Gold plans to conduct a thorough economic study on Relief Canyon, including estimates of production rates, cash costs, all-in-sustaining-costs, life-of-mine, net asset value estimates, and other key metrics. The mine plan supporting this study will include all measured and indicated ounces and the inferred ounces in the southwest stockpile.  The Company plans to consider the timing of a start-up decision at Relief Canyon based on this economic study.

Pershing Gold president and CEO, Stephen D. Alfers, said:

This resource update immediately creates additional shareholder value.  The last phase of the 2014 drilling program focused on development drilling to tighten up drill hole spacing in the high-grade zones of the North Target Area. We expect the 34% increase in the measured and indicated resource and the additional ounces identified in the stockpile will expand and upgrade the in-pit resource and correspondingly increase the current net asset value of the project.  For the remainder of 2015, we plan to continue to aggressively drill the deposit to build on the high-grade intercepts encountered earlier this year, and to further add ounces as we move Relief Canyon towards production.

Click here to read the full Pershing Gold (NASDAQ:PGLC) press release.