Apr 11 2016
Northquest Ltd. ("Northquest" or "the Company") is pleased to report its initial mineral resource estimate for the Vickers Gold Zone of the Pistol Bay project in eastern Nunavut, Canada. The mineral resource estimate was prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. ("RPA"). The technical report supporting this mineral resource estimate (the "Technical Report") will be filed on SEDAR within 45 days.
In addition to the initial mineral resource estimate of the Vickers Gold Zone, the Technical Report will also describe in detail the nature and distribution of 16 other gold occurrences on the Pistol Bay property for which there has been a minor amount of drilling by the Company.
The mineral resource estimate is confined to analysis of exploration work conducted on the Vickers Zone at the Pistol Bay project and it is based on 69 drill holes totalling 17,240 m at the Vickers Zone. The mineral resources are provided by domain in the following table. There are no resources included in the mineral resource estimate relating to Domains 107 and 108, which are located outside of the Whittle resource shell.
RPA is not aware of any known environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socioeconomic, marketing, or other relevant factors that could materially affect the resource estimate.
Mineral Resource Assumptions
RPA prepared the initial mineral resource estimate for the Vickers Zone using block models constrained with 3D wireframes on the principal mineralized domains. Values for gold were interpolated into blocks using inverse distance squared (ID2). The Vickers Zone block model has 5 m by 5 m by 5 m whole blocks with the model origin at 507,400E, 6,910,000, and 50 m elevation. It has 240 columns, 200 rows, and 70 levels for a total of 3.36 million blocks.
RPA has estimated the Vickers Zone mineral resources using a cut-off grade of 1.25 g/t Au. Only those blocks contained within the preliminary pit shell are reported as a mineral resource. For reporting of open pit mineral resources, an open pit shell was produced using Whittle open pit optimization software. Only classified blocks greater than or equal to the open pit cut-off grade and within the open pit shell were reported. The operating parameters for the optimization and cut-off grade estimate are summarized in the following table.
| Item |
Value |
| Au |
US$1,500/oz Au |
| Exchange Rate (C$/US$) |
1.30 |
| Reference Mining Cost |
$3.50/t mined |
| Processing and G&A costs |
$75.00/t mineralized material |
| Average Recovery |
95% |
| Maximum Pit Slope |
50° |
| Estimated Cut-off Grade |
1.25 g/t Au |
Sampling and Data Verification
Northquest diamond drilling data from 2012 to 2015 was used for the resource estimate. The BTW diameter (42 mm) core was cut in half with a rock saw and sent to accredited laboratories for screen metallics gold fire assays. Northquest's quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) procedures included the insertion of standards and blanks and sending samples to a secondary laboratory for check assaying. The QA/QC results confirm that the assays from 2012 to 2015 are acceptable to support the resource estimate. RPA used the assay certificates to verify 74% of the resource related samples in the drill hole database and found no errors.
Qualified Person
The technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Luke Evans, M.Sc., P.Eng., of RPA, a "Qualified Person" within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 who is independent of Northquest.