VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — GT Gold Corp. (TSX-V:GTT) (the “Company” or “GT Gold”) is pleased to provide notice that a National Instrument 43-101 technical report (“NI 43-101” or “Technical Report”) has been filed with Canadian securities regulators to support the maiden mineral resource estimate (“Mineral Resource”) for the Saddle North project (“Saddle North”) on the Company’s 100%-owned Tatogga property, located in northwestern British Columbia, Canada.

Paul Harbidge, President and CEO stated, “We are delighted to file the technical report in support of the previously disclosed maiden mineral resources for Saddle North, which marks another significant step for the company. An updated sensitivity analysis supports the presence of the continuous higher-grade core of mineralization, which has the potential to drive the value for our next key milestone, the Preliminary Economic Study”.

Highlights:

• The large mineral resource comprises an Indicated resource containing 1.81 Blb copper and 3.47 Moz gold and an Inferred resource containing 2.98 Blb copper and 5.46 Moz gold.
• Continuous higher-grade central core of mineralization within the deposit offers optionality and flexibility to be studied as part of the Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) to drive value.

• Good metallurgical results point to a simple process, with conventional flowsheet and clean concentrate.
   
• Excellent local infrastructure with a main highway crossing the property, a hydro powerline within easy access and a nearby deep-water port at Stewart, British Columbia.
   
• The topography of the property is highly favorable for the potential future development of the project both in terms of open pit and underground operations.
   
• Highly prospective exploration with the Saddle North deposit remaining open along strike and at depth. Saddle South provides additional project potential, it is only three kilometres from Saddle North and consists of a precious metal rich sheeted vein system. There are additional untested targets in proximity to Saddle North and South. At the new Quash Pass target, where there are two multi-kilometre anomalous trends, phase 1 diamond drilling is underway.

The Preliminary Economic Assessment is underway and will examine mining options, which are made possible by the size, grade and mineral distribution in the deposit. These will include:

• A starter pit that accesses the easily mineable surface ±150m which is situated at the top of a gently-sloping valley
• An underground operation, accessing the higher-grade core through a decline and which uses lower cost bulk mining methods

The Technical Report, dated effective August 20, 2020, is titled ” NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Saddle North Copper-Gold Project” and is available under the Company’s profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).The Technical Report was authored by Richard Flynn, P.Geo., Principal, Next Mine Consulting Ltd., who is a qualified person within the meaning of NI 43-101, is independent of the Company and has reviewed and approved the disclosure regarding the resource estimate for GT Gold disclosed herein.

The Mineral Resource and Technical Report for the Saddle North gold-rich copper porphyry system is founded on the geological model completed in Q1 2020 (see press release dated April 28, 2020).

Saddle North Mineral Resource Estimate

The open pit and underground mine shape constrained Mineral Resources are summarized below in Table 1.

Table 1: Saddle North Mineral Resource

Notes to Table 1: ‎

• Results are reported in-situ and diluted (underground resource) and are considered to have reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction, but not unplanned dilution. Dilution in the underground estimate is approx. 5 Mt Indicated and 27 Mt Inferred avg. $12/t NSR.
• As Independence is defined under NI 43-101, the Qualified Person is Mr. Richard Flynn, P.Geo. of Next Mine Consulting Ltd. (NMC), who is independent of GT Mining and has reviewed, validated, and takes responsibility for the Mineral Resource Estimates.
• The block model was regularized to 15 m x 15 m x 15 m whole blocks using mineralization.
• The effective date of the Mineral Resource estimate is July 6, 2020.
• The number of metric tonnes are rounded to the nearest million, gold ounces are rounded to the nearest thousand and silver ounces were rounded to the nearest ten thousand. Any discrepancies in the totals are due to rounding.
• Pit constrained Mineral Resources are reported in relation to a conceptual pit shell above an NSR cut-off of $9.00/t.
• Underground Mineral Resources assume block-cave mining method that does not allow selectivity. A bulk mining shape based on an NSR cut-off of $16.00/t was used to constrain the estimate and all blocks within the cave shape were tabulated irrespective of grade.
• Block tonnage was estimated from volumes using an average density per lithological unit. Specific gravity had a range of 2.75 to 2.86.
• All copper, gold and silver assays have been capped prior to being composited at 15m, breaking at lithology and alteration contacts.
• NSR calculation is based on a price of USD 3.25 per pound of copper, USD 1,500 per ounce of gold, USD 18 per ounce silver, and copper recoveries of 88%, gold recoveries of 67% and silver recoveries of 58%. Foreign Exchange assumption was $0.76 C$/US$.
• Net Smelter Return (“NSR”) ($/t) = (Cu% x 2204.62 lb/t x Cu Recovery x payable% x Cu CAD Price) + (Au g/t ÷ 31.1035 g/ounce x Au Recovery x Au CAD Price x payable%) + (Ag g/t ÷ 31.1035 g/ounce x Ag Recovery x Ag CAD Price x payable%).
• Copper Equivalent in % (CuEq) = Cu% + Au g/t * 0.53 + Ag g/t * 0.005.
• All values in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated.
• Differences may occur in totals due to rounding.
• Transition-Sulphide boundary determined from visual logging (weak oxidation in transition material limited to fracture plane surfaces).
• The CIM Definition Standards (May 10, 2014) were followed for classification of Mineral Resource.