Introduction
New Pacific Metals has established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Whitehorse Gold Corp. to hold its 100% owned Tagish Lake Gold Project, Yukon, Canada. New Pacific intends to directly or indirectly distribute Whitehorse Gold common shares to New Pacific shareholders on a pro rata basis by way of a plan of arrangement and apply to list the Whitehorse Gold common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange.
The spin-out would enable the Company’s shareholders to realize the value of the Tagish Lake Gold Project in the current strong gold market through direct ownership in Whitehorse Gold. Upon completion of the spin-out, the Company would continue to focus on the exploration and development of its Silver Sand and Silverstrike projects in Bolivia.
Tagish Lake Gold Project
New Pacific acquired the Tagish Lake Gold Project in 2010 through acquisition of Tagish Lake Gold Corp. and carried out limited drilling in 2011 that intercepted significant gold results. The Project consists of 1,051 mineral claims covering an area of 170 square kilometres and is located approximately 55 kilometres (km) south of Whitehorse, Yukon in the Wheaton River Valley region. The Project hosts the advanced-stage Skukum Creek, Goddell and Mt. Skukum high-grade gold deposits and multiple high-priority exploration targets.
Project infrastructure includes an all-weather access road, an all-weather 50-person camp, approximately 4.8 km of underground workings, an extensive surface road network and a previously operating 300 tonne per day mill along with a tailings management facility and service buildings. Over 140,000 metres of drilling has been completed on the Project and the Mt. Skukum Mine saw historical underground operations from 1986 to 1988 with reported production of approximately 79,000 ounces of gold, at an average grade of 13 g/t gold under a previous operator.
