Alaska explorer Contango ORE on Wednesday announced that it had bought Alaska Gold Torrent, which holds the rights to the Lucky Shot mine and related claims in the Willow mining district north of Anchorage.

The Lucky Shot mine historically produced 252 000 oz of gold from 169 000 t of ore, indicating an average head grade of 1.5 oz/t.

President and CEO Rick van Nieuwenhuyse said that the Lucky Shot project represented an “exciting opportunity” to add additional value for Contango shareholders and marked a new focus of the company.

“The historic Willow Mining District consistently produced high-grade gold from free-milling, low angle quartz veins averaging between 30 g/t and 60 g/t and measuring 1 m to 5 m thick. The property is road accessible and has excellent infrastructure. Our plan is to re-establish access to drill the down-dip extension of the Lucky Shot and Coleman mines,” he said.

Once access is established, Contango plans to refurbish the underground workings and then to construct 600 m of new 3 m by 4 m drift paralleling the vein, followed by 2 400 m of underground diamond drilling to define a new resource.

The Lucky Shot and Coleman veins have only been mined a short distance down dip, Van Nieuwenhuyse said, noting that these type of mesothermal veins systems typically extended for kilometers down dip.

The company sees the potential to develop significant gold resources of high-grade gold vein along the 1.6 km known Coleman-Lucky Shot-War Baby trend by drilling down dip of the areas historically mined.

Furthermore, drilling by Full Metals Minerals between 2005 and 2009 on the Murphy zone, about 600 m to the east of the War Baby historic mine, intersected a 1 m vein sample running 54.6 g/t, suggesting that mineralisation may continue further east from the three developed mines – Coleman/Lucky Shot/War Baby.

“Contango is well positioned, with experienced personnel and capital, to explore and expand the historic high-grade resource at Lucky Shot. We feel the exploration potential of the Willow district is excellent, albeit perhaps under-appreciated,” said Van Nieuwenhuyse.

Contango also has a 30% nonoperating interest in the Manh Choh project, in Alaska. Kinross is the 70% owner and operator of the gold project, which is currently in a feasibility study stage.