Marathon Gold Corporation ("Marathon" or the "Company") today announced plans for its 2016 summer drill program and an update on its current bought deal private placement financing, announced previously in Marathon's press release on April 21, 2016. Marathon Gold was notified by Canaccord Genuity Corp., the underwriter of the financing, that it would exercise its over-allotment option to increase the $2 million bought deal financing to $3 million. The financing is comprised of flow-through shares priced at $0.27 per share and units priced at $ 0.23 per unit, with each unit comprised of a common share and a half warrant. The proceeds of this financing will be used for advancing the Valentine Lake project.
Marathon Gold's summer drilling program is expected to commence in early June following spring break-up.
Marathon's 2016 two-phase metallurgical testing program is underway, with approximately 75% of the costs of the program being underwritten by the Research and Development Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Marathon's testing program to assess the amenability of lower grade material at Valentine to low-cost heap leaching continues with column tests on samples of mineralized material from the Leprechaun and Marathon deposits. Four columns two 6 inches in diameter and two 8 inches in diameter containing minus 0.5 inch and minus 0.75 inches respectively have been under leach since the first week of April. Precursor bottle roll tests completed in late March recovered 73.6% of the gold in 96 hours with gold still being recovered at the time the bottle roll tests were concluded.
Phillip Walford, President and CEO of Marathon Gold, stated "It is very encouraging to have confirmation of the $3 million bought deal financing. It demonstrates that more people are seeing the potential of the Valentine Gold Camp becoming a mining property. We have planned a very cost effective program for the summer consisting of exploration and resource development. The metallurgical program is very important for the future of the project. The potential option of heap leaching also enables significant reductions in capital and operating costs which will improve the project economics. Our focus is to move to a PEA once we have conclusive metallurgical results and have added on some additional resources this year."