The Donlin Gold partners have increased the level of activity at the Alaska project this year, with about 65 people on site for the 2022 field season and three of four drill rigs currently operating, NovaGold reported on Monday.

“It is invigorating to have drills turning for the first winter programme in years,” NovaGold president and CEO Greg Lang stated.

The 2022 project budget of $60-million, split equally by NovaGold and Barrick Gold, is the largest project budget in more than a decade and is designed to update geological modelling and interpretation work for an updated resource model. It also includes engineering activities for use in an updated project feasibility study.

About 34 000 m of in-pit and below-pit drilling is planned for Donlin in 2022. The 2021 programme, completed in September, drilled a total of 24 264 m.

“It is encouraging to see a significant drill programme for 2022 to further increase our understanding of the orebody, driven by our knowledge gained from the 2021 drill programme. This year’s drilling campaign will focus on the potential upside of the Acma pit at depth, where there is still limited drilling, focusing on the upside for the pit. We will also focus on grid drilling on Lewis and Divide as we also look to unconstrain the pit with additional at-depth targets.

"This significant programme for 2022 will help guide us on future drill targets and the path forward with the project,” said Barrick CEO Mark Bristow.

Meanwhile, Donlin Gold announced the final set of assay results from the 2021 programme on Monday, including assays for 21 complete holes and 22 partial holes, encompassing the remaining 8 500 meters of length drilled.

Five of the top intervals received from the final set of 2021 assay results released include:

• DC21-2017 intersected 19.00 m grading 18.23 g/t gold starting at 144.53 m drilled depth, including a sub interval of 14.31 m grading 23.49 g/t gold starting at 144.53 m drilled depth;
• DC21-1994 intersected 77.56 m grading 3.51 g/t gold starting at 262.56 m drilled depth, including a sub interval of 7.91 m grading 12.39 g/t gold starting at 322.94 m drilled depth;
• DC21-2015 intersected 43.01 m grading 5.04 g/t gold starting at 27.16 m drilled depth, including a sub interval of 5.99 m grading 11.81 g/t gold starting at 29.22 m drilled depth;
• DC21-2019 intersected 28.23 m grading 4.40 g/t gold starting at 156.26 m drilled depth; and,
• DC21-1998 intersected 45.83 m grading 3.04 g/t gold starting at 103.55 m drilled depth.