Drill Tracker Weekly: Pilot Gold Releases Final Drill Results from Hilltop Porphyry

Drill Tracker Weekly highlights drilling results in context with our database of over 10,000 drilling and trenching results. The purpose of this report is to highlight drilling and trenching results that stand out from the pack and compare them to their peer group. This report does not constitute initiation of coverage or a recommendation.

Pilot Gold (TSX:PLG)

Price: $0.79

Market cap: $85 million

Cash estimate: $21 million

Project: TV Tower

Country: Turkey

Ownership: 60 percent

Resources: No resources to date on the porphyries; KCD hosts separate indicated resources of 11.4 million tonnes at 46.7 g/t gold and 11.6 million tonnes at 1.22 g/t gold

Project status: 25,000 meters drilling in 2015

• Pilot Gold announced the final drilling results from the Hilltop porphyry on its 60-percent-owned TV Tower project in Western Turkey. On completion of the 43-101 and technical review by Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.B,NYSE:TCK), Pilot Gold will have earned a 60-percent interest in the TV Tower project after having completed the $21-million earn in on the project. The company also holds a 40-percent interest with Teck on the nearby Haliaga porphyry.

• The Hilltop porphyry discovery, announced in January 2014, was the first of three copper-gold porphyries discovered in 2014 on the TV Tower project, along with the Valley and Columbaz porphyries. Highlights from Hilltop drilling include 235.8 meters grading 0.3 percent copper and 0.15 g/t gold starting from 42 meters depth. While on the low side with respect to grade, the project’s proximity to the company’s 40-percent-owned Haliaga porphyry makes the cluster of three near-surface porphyries at TV Tower an attractive early stage target.

• On January 29, 2015, the company announced the results of an updated PEA on the Haliaga porphyry, which is located 15 kilometers to the east of TV Tower. The revised PEA envisions a smaller, but scalable, 25,000-tonne-per-day operation with an initial capital cost of $364 million and operating costs of $1.08 per pound copper (net of by-products). The project has an estimated strip ratio of 1.3:1. The PEA estimates an after-tax NPV (7 percent) of $474 million, a 43.1-percent IRR and a 1.3-year payback.

• The TV Tower project also hosts the KCD silver and K2 oxide gold deposits, which also contain 43-101 resource estimates. The company has budgeted $7.5 million and 25,000 meters of drilling for 2015, and will focus on expanding the Valley and Hilltop porphyries as well as on initiating initial metallurgical studies on the porphyry projects.

Discovery hole (January 2014): 224 meters at 0.59 percent copper, 0.13 g/t gold

Current holes: 235 meters at 0.3 percent copper, 0.15 g/t gold; 138 meters at 0.21 percent copper, 0.46 g/t gold

Disclosure: I, Wayne Hewgill certify that the information in this report is sourced through public documents that are believed to be reliable but accuracy and completeness as represented in this report cannot be guaranteed. The author has not received payment from any of the companies covered in this report.

At the date of this release the author, Wayne Hewgill, owns shares in the following companies: Pilot Gold. 

This report makes not recommendations to buy sell or hold.

Wayne Hewgill is a geologist with extensive knowledge of the global mining industry gained through 30 years of diversified experience in mineral exploration and new business development in Canada, as well as 10 years living in Africa, New Zealand and Australia. He was previously senior research officer at BHP Billiton, an executive with an exploration company working in Argentina and a mining analyst at three Vancouver-based financial groups where he developed the Drill Tracker database in 2006. He holds a B.Sc. in Geology from the University of British Columbia and is registered as a Professional Geoscientist (P.Geo) with APEGBC.