The Buffalo Gulch Project is accessible year round and there is good access via State Highway 14 from Grangeville (60 miles west of Elk City). This pre-production project is located within the 26 mile long Orogrande Shear Zone. Gold was originally discovered near Elk City, Idaho in 1861 and the Orogrande Shear zone has produced approximately 4,000,000 oz of gold and currently hosts 213 registered mineral workings.
The property is comprised of 107 unpatented quartz lode mining claims.
Premium Exploration entered a Letter of Intent to joint venture with Clearwater Mining Company to earn a 50% interest in the property. Terms of the Joint Venture Agreement
Extensive soil sampling, geophysical surveys and drill programs have defined a disseminated gold deposit containing both oxide and sulfide mineralization. The gold deposit is open along strike and at depth into sulfide mineralization. To date, deep drilling has not been conducted to test the extent of the sulfide mineralization and only 10% of the surface geochemical anomaly appears to have been drill tested by previous operators. Premium believes that substantial potential exists to significantly increase the scale of this gold deposit.
Geological interpretation compares similarities betwee that gold vein structure associated with the north Orogrande Shear zone the high-grade gold vein structure intersected on the southern extension of Orogrande Shear zone, where initial drilling returned 21.3m averaging 9.9 g/ton gold mineralization, including 1.5m of 67.89 g/ton.
Exploration programs on the property were conducted by Bema Gold Corporation, Idaho Consolidated Minerals Corporation and its successor Beartooth Platinum Corporation.
The gold mineralization went through an extensive metallurgical testing program, beginning with bottle-roll cyanidation leach tests in 1986, culminating in two pilot-scale heap leach test pads that were constructed and operated in 1987 and 1989, respectively. Based on this work, previous operators calculated a non 43-101 compliant “mineable reserve” of 4,800,000 tons of oxide ore, containing approximately 100,000 ounces of gold at a low stripping ratio of 0.88 waste to ore.
The property previously received all of the necessary permits for the construction and operation of an open pit gold mine from the various United States federal and state regulatory agencies in 1991, all of which have been kept current to date.
Past geophysical surveys on the northern extension of the Orogrande Shear zone identified the prominent IP anomaly that runs parallel and adjacent to the Buffalo Gulch gold deposit which Premium believes represents a high-grade gold vein target similar to the high-grade gold vein structure intersected on the southern extension of Orogrande Shear zone where initial drilling returned 21.3m averaging 9.9 g/ton gold mineralization, including 1.5m of 67.89 g/ton.
To date, no drilling has been conducted on this prominent IP anomaly. Premium is preparing the permit application to undertake drilling to test for the source of the IP anomaly which may be associated with high grade gold mineralization. Drilling will commence upon receipt of the permits .