Before he founded
International Tower Hill Mines (TSX: ITH; NYSE-AM: THM) in the mid-2000s and discovered the Livengood deposit in Alaska — a development project that now has an estimated 19.7 million oz. gold — Jeffrey Pontius worked for seven years as the U.S. and North American exploration manager for
AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU). It was during his time at the South African miner that the geologist led the discovery and development team of its Cripple Creek deposit in Colorado 1991.
AngloGold was an early investor in International Tower Hill, and so when Pontius decided in 2011 to leave the company he created and spin out some of its assets into a junior called
Corvus Gold (TSX: KOR; US-OTC: CORVF), AngloGold Ashanti became one of the junior’s cornerstone investors. Since then the gold major has increased its stake in Corvus Gold to 19.9%.
“It’s kind of a bet on the jockey,” jokes Pontius, Corvus Gold’s president and CEO. “I’d been driving their exploration programs for a long time before I went out on my own with International Tower Hill and Corvus, so they’ve been in basically from the beginning of Corvus, but they’ve moved up their share position substantially over the last year.”
Corvus Gold’s North Bullfrog-Mother Lode project is a multimillion-ounce gold property with five known deposits in the Bare Mountain mining district of Nevada’s Nye County.
Continue reading at The Northern Miner.
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