About Solitario
Over the years, Solitario and its predecessor parent company, Crown Resources, have been one of the most successful grassroots explorers in the western hemisphere. Our team has discovered over four million ounces of gold and four billion pounds of zinc. Through this period, we completed two major transactions totaling approximately US$250 million in stock and cash, to the benefit of our shareholders. In addition, our exploration efforts have led to over $175 million being expended on our exploration projects by our joint venture partners.
During the past five years Solitario Resources has successfully transitioned back into a gold-focused exploration company from a zinc-centric company with two high-value zinc assets. With the addition of the Golden Crest gold project in 2021, Solitario now controls one of the most exciting greenfields gold projects in North America.
We are now completely focused on our 100%-owned, 33,000-acre, Golden Crest gold project in South Dakota. With three years of intensive surface exploration work at Golden Crest, Solitario is on the cusp of drilling some of the most promising gold targets we have ever developed. Over 20 high-quality drilling targets have been identified, within a huge 80 square kilometer area that has undergone intense hydrothermal alteration and emplacement of gold mineralization.
Many of the defined gold zones discovered to date are over a kilometer in length and several hundred meters wide. Gold values in rock grab samples often exceed 10-grams per tonne gold – right on surface. Two of our surface trenches intersected 36 meters grading 17.6 gpt gold and 60 meters grading 8.6 gpt gold – truly exceptional results. Amazingly, this property has never been drilled even though its in the shadow of the Homestake-Wharf mining complex that has a 90-million ounce gold endowment.
Solitario’s two zinc assets, the Florida Canyon and Lik projects, represent two of the highest-grade undeveloped zinc deposits in the western hemisphere. Both have had Preliminary Economic Assessments completed on them demonstrating the potential for robust economics.
The Florida Canyon deposit in Peru was discovered by Solitario and is joint ventured with Nexa Resources (Nexa 61% – Solitario 39%), the fifth largest zinc producer in the world. Besides being large and high-grade, the Florida Canyon joint venture is unique in that Solitario is fully carried to production by Nexa. To date over $80 million has been expended by our partner on the property.
Solitario’s Lik zinc deposit in Alaska is equally high-grade and with a large drill-indicated resource. Solitario’s Lik joint venture partner is Teck Resources (Teck 50% – Solitario 50%), the third largest zinc producer in the world. To date, the property is estimated to have had $40 million in exploration expenditures to date.
In summary, we believe that our Golden Crest property has unparalleled upside potential that could be unlocked when drilling begins in 2024. Underpinning Solitario’s market value are our two advanced-staged zinc projects, Florida Canyon and Lik, that continue to move through the latter stages of exploration.