It has been a tough ride for gold since March, or even going back to late in 2011 when investors were piling into the safe haven, driving the precious yellow metal to over $1,900 per ounce.
Around $1,200 an ounce now, spot gold prices are looking for some support in this area as the price hasn’t fallen below $1,179 since the summer of 2010. Gold bulls are looking for some seasonal demand to help produce a bounce, with data suggesting that demand is starting to increase in Asia and India, the world’s top two gold consumers.
Arresting the gold slide could breathe a little life into the Toronto Venture Exchange, which is chock full of small and microcap resource stocks. ATAC Resources Ltd. (TSX-Venture:ATC) has tracked gold’s movement and could also be readying for a bounce as its chart inched out of an oversold condition on Monday with a 5% rise to close at 63 cents.
ATAC announced Tuesday morning results from the final three 2014 diamond drill holes at the Conrad Zone of the company’s 100-percent owned Rackla Gold Project in central Yukon.
Rackla spans more than 1,700 square kilometres and is located about 55 kilometres northeast of Keno City. ATAC discovered the project in 2006. In recent years, drilling (about 75,000 metres worth) has been focused on the Nadaleen Trend, where six areas of significant Carlin-type gold mineralization have been delineated, making it Canada’s only Carlin-type gold district.
Carlin-type gold deposits are characterized by microscopic (or "invisible") gold and named after Newmont’s (NYSE:NEM) Carlin Mine in the Carlin Trend in Nevada, the first large deposit of this type of gold ever discovered.
ATAC said today that all three step-out holes at the Conrad Lower Zone hit high-grade gold mineralization and expanded the zone, which is still open along strike and depth. Further, the new discovery of high-grade gold mineralization beneath the Lower Zone is an entirely new area for exploration.
Highlights from the drilling included an intersect of 40.22 metres grading 6.57 g/t gold in drill hole OS-12-228. Within that cut, there was an intersect of 11.87 meters grading 18.18 g/t gold and further down another intersect of 24.38 metres at 3.00 g/t gold. Results from drill hole OS-12-229 were highlighted by intervals of 19.24 metres grading 4.21 g/t gold and 36.57 metres grading 5.06 g/t gold (including 13.58 metres at 9.40 g/t gold). Drill hole OS-12-230 was highlighted by 42.67 metres grading 3.03 g/t gold, including a cut of 6.09 metres grading 13.61 g/t gold.
"The 2014 Conrad drilling program achieved its objective, with all four holes expanding the Lower Zone with high-grade gold intersections either along strike or below known mineralization," states Julia Lane, ATAC's Rackla Gold Project Manager, in a statement today. "Only 300 m of the presently known 800 m long favourable siltstone-limestone contact has been tested and the Lower Zone remains open to expansion along strike and below the current tier of drill intersections," she added.
Shares of ATC gapped ahead slightly at the opening bell to 66 cents and are holding at 64 cents for a gain of 1.6% less than one hour into the trading session. Although shares have sunk dramatically from a high of $1.73 in March, the stock is still up by about 10% in 2014.
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