New Found Gold says it is proceeding immediately with assaying of drill whole-core samples from its Queensway Project, in Newfoundland, Canada, using the Chrysos PhotonAssay™ method at Intertek’s facilities in Perth, Western Australia.

Novo Resources Corp, a significant shareholder of New Found, currently uses Intertek’s Chrysos PhotonAssay facilities in Perth for production and exploration samples from its Western Australia gold mining and exploration projects and is facilitating priority access for New Found to the Intertek facilities under Novo’s arrangement with Intertek.

The company is planning to send the first shipment of Queensway drill core from Gander this coming week, including intervals from recent drilling that were previously designated for conventional assay on a “rush basis”, the company said. Assay results from these samples are anticipated to be received and reported in the coming weeks.

Intertek’s assay facilities in Perth are used by a broad spectrum of gold mining and exploration companies and it operates two Chrysos PhotonAssay instruments at its Perth laboratory with a third to be installed shortly.

New Found is advancing towards an agreement with MSALABS for 20,000 assays per month at a new facility MSALABS anticipate commissioning shortly in Val d’Or, Quebec, and is also working with MSALABS towards an agreement for the installation of a Chrysos PhotonAssay unit in Gander, in Newfoundland, in 2022.

The use of the Intertek facilities in Perth will allow the company to immediately proceed with leveraging the Chrysos PhotonAssay for the assay of drill core currently being produced at Queensway. This assay work would transition to the MSALABS facility in Val d’Or, Quebec, once capacity there is available to the company.

The Chrysos PhotonAssay method is non-destructive and New Found’s QA/QC program will include fire assay/metallic screening of sample material post photon assay for comparison of the results.

Melissa Render, VP Exploration of New Found, said: “With the current large backlog of samples and resulting slow turnaround times for conventional assaying in North America, even with the additional transport time required to ship samples to Perth, we believe that proceeding with Chrysos PhotonAssay analysis at these facilities in Perth will significantly shorten our turnaround time on assays. This will provide faster receipt of critical information to our exploration team and will allow more timely disclosure of drill results to the market.

“Recognising the nuggety nature of gold mineralisation at Queensway, the use of non-destructive, Chrysos PhotonAssay method on whole-core samples will contribute significantly to optimising the accuracy of our assay results. The Chrysos PhotonAssay method is rapidly gaining industry wide acceptance. Barrick, in partnership with MSALABS, recently installed a Chrysos PhotonAssay unit at its Bulyanhulu Mine in Tanzania, and Kirkland Lake Gold recently installed a unit at its Fosterville Mine in Victoria State, Australia. We are very excited to be moving ahead and implementing the Chrysos PhotonAssay assay process for our Queensway Project and we look forward to reporting our first assay results from recent drilling in the next several weeks.”