During the coming year, Kinross will perform extensive engineering and airborne geophysical studies to fill out an extensive exploration database. To accelerate actual start of production, the permitting process will be started even before the feasibility study is completed.
       Planned engineering work includes modeling the deposit, developing a mine plan, as well as a pit and access road design, geotechnical review for pit slope angles and a dewatering review of related test work.
       Baseline studies, begun this year and continuing in 2006, will include fugitive emissions, geochemistry, aquatic biota, wetlands delineation, socioeconomic analysis, and noise and visual impact studies. An extensive exploration database will be compiled and interpreted to identify new targets and help to establish an initial resource.
       A high resolution aeromagnetic and EM resistivity survey will be flown for the first time over the Gil Venture property. The goal is to produce a more detailed structural and lithologic base map of the Fort Knox Trend. Robertson says the survey may pinpoint drill targets on the Gil – and, if they are lucky, another 4-million-ounce Fort Knox-type deposit.
       “There is a good chance we will have one or more targets we can drill this year. It will be quite exciting,” says Robertson.
Permitting activities will consume most of Kinross’ 2005 development budget. More than $500,000 will be spent on the process of obtaining required permits including a plan of operations, solid waste disposal, storm water discharge, wetlands, and plans for monitoring, reclamation, and closure.
       A cultural resource survey was completed last year and surface and ground water hydrology data, begun in 2000, is nearly complete. Once the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completes a required environmental assessment, the permitting process can be completed.

       During the past year, several new high grade quartz veins were discovered on the Gil Venture property. The Gil’s main zone ranges up to 80 feet thick, trends over 2,500 feet and remains open along strike and at depth. Mineralization found at the Intersection Area, east of the North Gil and northeast of the Main Gil, shows scattered zones of high grade gold. Sourdough Ridge, east of the Main Gil, contains a mineralized trend striking to the northeast. Gold found in veins and shears is similar to that of the Main Gil.
       Since 1991 when Kinross joined the project, the partners have spent some $10 million to define a resource on the Gil Project. That resource of 400,000 drill indicated ounces of gold (10 million tons grading 0.04 ounces gold per ton) is expected to grow upon completion of the feasibility study this year. Exploration efforts have examined only a fraction of the property so far.

       Teryl has completed a busy year on the Fish Creek property, a joint venture with Linux Gold (also managed by Robertson) that shares a common boundary with the Gil Joint Venture Project. Jeff Keener, a leading placer geologist, reports that several lode targets were discovered during the placer program. More than twenty drill holes penetrated a tight cross section across the gold placer deposit discovered last year during a magnetic survey. The survey followed up on extremely high grade placer gold found during excavation of the Fort Knox mine fresh water dam just upstream of the Fish Creek property. This year, Teryl plans a drilling program to evaluate the upper part of the paystreak and to drill the lode targets which were identified by a magnetic survey.

West Ridge Claims Expanded

       There is no doubt Teryl is operating in a geologically rich area. Since the 1980s, the Tintina gold belt has yielded gold resources in excess of 23 million ounces of gold from ten different deposits.
       It is now clear a production decision on Teryl’s Gil Joint Venture property will be made by Kinross in 2006. It is also clear from the company’s major financial commitment and extensive feasibility and pre-production plans that Kinross fully expects that decision to be positive. This is all very good news for Teryl.
       The icing on Teryl’s cake is the potential for equal or even greater resources on the company’s adjacent properties – Fish Creek, West Ridge and Stepovich. Of these properties, the most advanced is Fish Creek which Robertson says could make Teryl a “double winner.”
       “Our downside risk is to go to production with the ore we have now. But the upside potential is that we will find another Fort Knox deposit – four to five million ounces of gold with a mill just sitting there waiting to produce that ore,” says Robertson.
       A major key to the future success of Teryl’s joint venture with Kinross is the extensive infrastructure already in place. Teryl recently closed a $600,000 private placement, more than enough to meet this year’s 20% share obligation in the Gil Project.
       “There is little question that 2005 will be a watershed year for Teryl,” says analyst Jeff Howlett. “We believe that there is considerable potential in Teryl’s future market performance.”
       Or, as Teryl’s President John Robertson puts it, “It’s pretty exciting when you get to this stage. To have properties and a partner of this quality, to be in the midst of a feasibility study, and to be so close to production is like a dream come true.”