Vancouver, British Columbia–(Newsfile Corp. – March 31, 2025) – Bravada Gold Corporation
The Executive Order invokes emergency powers pursuant to the Defence Production Act of 1950 with the stated objective of restoring the American mining industry and reducing dependence on mineral imports. Several actions are listed for U.S. projects including streamlining of permit and regulatory processes, prioritization of mining projects, and increased investment through several mechanisms. In addition, the Order also calls for clarifications to the Mining Act.
Of key significance to the Company, the Order specifically includes gold. Bravada’s Wind Mountain project is an advanced-stage, past-producing gold/silver mine in a sparsely populated region of northwestern Nevada. The project is expected to benefit greatly from the push to return American mines to production as mandated by the White House. In addition, the positive economics identified in Wind Mountain’s Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) study, as summarized below, are expected to be markedly enhanced from current precious metals prices which are substantially higher than those used in the 2022 study.
Recognizing the improved regulatory and market environments, the Company’s Board has identified an independent Pre-Feasibility Study (“PFS”) as the next step in further derisking the Wind Mountain project towards production and has requested management to provide a plan, including a budget, to achieve this objective.
Bravada President Joe Kizis commented, “Nevada is one of the most fertile regions in the world to explore for gold and other metals, and the State has many advantages when developing new mines. Yet, despite those advantages and widespread recognition that new sources of metals need to be discovered in politically reliable countries, exploration for new deposits in the U.S. has been hampered by increasingly long lead times to develop new mines. This Executive Order marks a strong shift towards recognising the importance of finding and developing new metal sources in the U.S. in a timely manner. We have always recognized Wind Mountain’s strong potential for a rapid return to production and will now look to accelerate that process in light of recent developments and rising commodity prices. We look forward to further updates as we incorporate this new mandate into our exploration and development timelines across all our assets.”
Wind Mountain Gold/Silver Flagship Property
Work by the Company has delineated a substantial gold and silver resource and delivered a positive PEA study that utilized US$1,750/oz gold and $21.00/oz silver for a Phase I operation in December 2022 (see news release dated January 23, 2023 for Technical Report filing information). In addition to a dramatic increase in metal prices since the PEA study was conducted, the following features were identified to further enhance the project:
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A Phase II pad site was identified to extend mine-life of the in-pit resource (See news release dated March 03, 2023).
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Additional exploration targets have been identified to further extend mining life, particularly the North Hill target, which is located directly uphill from the Pad II site.
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The Company believes exploration targets have the potential to extend mine-life to more than 10 years.
Other Nevada Projects
In addition to broadly prioritizing the mining industry in the U.S., the Order calls for an inventory of earlier stage projects in the U.S. with a view to assessing them for prioritization and acceleration of exploration and development work. This new mandate is expected to benefit Bravada’s suite of other gold and silver assets in Nevada while it advances its flagship Wind Mountain towards a production decision.
The Company currently has five gold and silver projects in Nevada that it is advancing with a view to partnership or sale:
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East Walker – This new in 2024 property has geologic features comparable to large, high-grade low-sulfidation -type gold deposits like AngloGold Ashanti’s discovery at Silicon/Merlin, which is also located within Nevada’s prolific Walker Lane Gold trend. Bravada has assembled a large amount of historic data for the East Walker project and surrounding region, which was acquired by staking on open Federal ground. Historic data includes widely spaced surface rock-chip samples, with many grab samples assaying over 100ppb gold. Several 1980’s-vintage conventional-rotary drill holes were drilled on southwestern portion of the claim group where…
Read More: Bravada Gold Looks to Accelerate the Past-Producing Wind Mountain Gold/Silver