BAKERSFIELD, Calif., Dec. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Tri-Valley Corporation (AMEX:TIV) has completed purchasing the royalty and carried working interests of the primary mineral leases in its 120 square mile gold exploration project area of mutual interest at Richardson, Alaska. In all, some 480,000 unregistered restricted shares valued at a total of $3,716,500 were used over the past three years to acquire several layers of royalty interests from the original claim owners, various financing parties and the estate of the geologist who brought the property to Tri-Valley.
"This removes significant advance royalty payments from our monthly overhead and, more importantly, provides a clean property for development. At today's prices, it is equivalent to less than 7,400 ounces of gold and we believe the chances are very good that the Richardson property will yield many times that royalty benefit to our shareholders," said F. Lynn Blystone, president and chief executive officer.
Comprised entirely of mining-friendly Alaska State lands, the 42-square mile claim block is located some 65 miles south of Fairbanks on the year round Richardson Highway, and has ample power, water and fuel available, does not drain into sensitive streams, is not a wild or scenic area, has no acid rock characteristics and is near work force towns. Tri-Valley has explored the property since 1987 and has found physical gold in samples from 60 locations along a 20-mile swath which it believes suggests a very large, gold system in place. Diamond core drilling and soil auger sampling last summer around the so-called Democrat Dike suggests the target may be a much larger geologic feature, and the Company is awaiting assay results by the end of the year to see if the gold extent is similarly greater.
"Gold exploration is very risky to the point of being treacherous, but we have steadily built a positive database that has always supported further exploration and we are now beginning to measure the gold we have found in these occurrences. We have expressions of interest from firms with a minimum threshold of five million ounces for the Democrat Dike and have several other large drill targets as well," Blystone said.
With the buyout of these royalties, Tri-Valley will transfer the property to its wholly-owned subsidiary, Select Resources Corporation, whose portfolio includes the 15-square mile Shorty Creek gold exploration prospect some 70 miles north of Fairbanks on the all-weather Elliot Highway and the 6-square mile Typhoon gold exploration prospect in the eastern Klondike area of the Canadian Yukon Territory, all of which yielded favorable results from last summer's field programs. Select also operates and manages the Tri-Western Resources, LLC, industrial minerals joint venture with calcium carbonate deposits in California and Alaska and basalt and cinder deposits in California.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events and performance could vary materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements which includes such words and phrases as exploratory, wildcat, prospect, speculates, unproved, prospective, very large, expect, potential, etc. Among the factors that could cause actual results, events and performance to differ materially are risks and uncertainties discussed in the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2005, and the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004.
The Company is in its 43rd year of business as a successful operating company and for 32 years has been a full reporting 12 (g) publicly traded Delaware Corporation. Tri-Valley Corporation stock is publicly traded on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol "TIV" in the United States and is also traded in Europe on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol "TVC WKN 911919." Our company websites, which include all SEC filings, are http://www.tri-valleycorp.com/ and http://www.tri-valley.de/.
Contact: F. Lynn Blystone, President and CEO, Tri-Valley Corporation, +1-661-864-0500, or toll free, +1-800-579-9314, or fax, +1-661-864-0600 DATASOURCE: Tri-Valley Corporation CONTACT: F. Lynn Blystone, President and CEO, Tri-Valley Corporation, +1-661-864-0500, or toll free, +1-800-579-9314, or fax, +1-661-864-0600 Web site: http://www.tri-valley.de/ Web site: http://www.tri-valleycorp.com/
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