Dakota Gold Corp. (Dakota Gold) engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in the United States of America (‘U.S.’).
The company has been in the exploration stage since its formation and has not realized any revenues from operations. The company's strategy is to move projects from exploration to development, and finally into production, as results of exploration may dictate. The company's management and technical teams have extensive mining and exploration ex...
Dakota Gold Corp. (Dakota Gold) engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in the United States of America (‘U.S.’).
The company has been in the exploration stage since its formation and has not realized any revenues from operations. The company's strategy is to move projects from exploration to development, and finally into production, as results of exploration may dictate. The company's management and technical teams have extensive mining and exploration experience, much of it in the Homestake District, and the company intends to leverage its experience, together with its business presence in South Dakota, to create value for the company's stakeholders.
The company maintains 100% ownership of 11 mineral properties in the Homestake District, consisting of 2,086 unpatented claims and a combination of surface leases and/or ownership covering a total of over 49,000 acres located in the Homestake Mining District of South Dakota, including the Blind Gold, City Creek, Tinton, West Corridor, Ragged Top, Poorman Anticline, Maitland, South Lead / Whistler Gulch, the Barrick Option, Richmond Hill, and Cambrian Unconformity Properties, all of which are located in the heart of the Homestake District.
Properties
Dakota Gold has 100% ownership of 11 mineral projects in the Homestake District, consisting of 2,086 unpatented claims and a combination of surface leases and/or ownership covering a total of approximately 49,260 acres located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. These properties include the Blind Gold, City Creek, Cambrian Unconformity, Tinton, West Corridor, Ragged Top, Poorman Anticline, Maitland, and South Lead / Whistler Gulch properties. In addition, the company has 100% ownership in the Barrick Option property and the Richmond Hill Project upon exercise of each of their underlying option agreements.
The aggregated individual claims, properties, options, and leases are referred to herein as the ‘Black Hills Property’.
Prior to 2022, exploration by Dakota Gold on its properties has been limited to field sampling programs, field mapping programs, geophysical surveys, and a campaign to acquire historical data sets that were known to exist for its property, and the balance of the greater Homestake District. In late January 2022, Dakota Gold started its first drilling program and has since expanded its drilling programs to key project areas.
Exploration plans and budgets have been prepared for the Richmond Hill and Maitland project areas. The Cambrian Unconformity, City Creek, Maitland, and Richmond Hill projects currently have permits with the South Dakota Division of Environment and Natural Resources (‘SDDANR’). Exploration plans may be modified pending the ongoing modeling and interpretation of the company's airborne magnetic and radiometric survey data acquired in 2020 and 2021, and an IP-Resistivity survey completed at Richmond Hill in 2022. Dakota Gold’s technical team continues to model using its geophysics, geology, and geochemistry data sets to improve its ability to map and project lithology and structure in covered areas, and/or where the company has less historical data.
Based on the company’s experience in the Homestake District, Dakota Gold, together with the University of South Dakota, has modeled for the exploration, development, mining, and closure of a potential Homestake-style deposit within the same geological setting of the Homestake District. The strategy of this financial modeling is to determine whether, if Dakota Gold is technically successful in defining its deposit expectation with drill holes, any identified deposit would make commercial sense to ultimately develop.
Dakota Gold's Black Hills Property has well-developed power infrastructure. All of Dakota Gold's claims and leases have power on the property now, or have nearby access to power with the potential to be upgraded for production if exploration proves successful.
The Homestake District is a favorable geologic gold setting with three unique gold deposit types that have yielded approximately 46 million ounces of gold production over the past 140 years, including Proterozoic-age Homestake iron-formation hosted gold deposits, Tertiary-age replacement gold deposits, and Cambrian paleoplacer gold deposits.
Dakota Gold has based the acquisition of its Black Hills claims, surface and mineral acreage, and lease position on more than 50 years of combined mining and exploration experience in the Homestake Mining Company, and the knowledge gained from previous exploration and mining efforts.
The Homestake District is a low-cost jurisdiction with well-developed infrastructure, and an existing experienced mining and exploration workforce. South Dakota's regulatory authorities have historically demonstrated a willingness to work with responsible operators to permit well-planned, compliant projects, and South Dakota's exploration and mining regulations are reasonable and comparable to other mining jurisdictions within the United States.
Dakota Gold’s business strategy is to advance the Richmond Hill gold resource towards eventual production, and to discover another Homestake-style deposit in the iron-formation host that is distributed across the Homestake District. Dakota Gold continues to expand its land position in the Homestake District with the objective of simultaneously developing gold targets that could be brought into production in the near term.
On April 30, 2024, the company announced an initial mineral resource estimate under S-K 1300 for the Richmond Hill Project. The mineral resource estimate was derived from a historical database containing 69,401 gold assays from more than 900 drill holes, including 57 drill holes from Dakota Gold’s own drill program completed prior to October 5, 2023.
The company released an updated S-K 1300 mineral resource estimate for the Richmond Hill Project on February 6, 2025. This updated resource is informed by a historical database containing 56,734 gold assays from 902 drill holes totaling 90,447 meters (296,743 feet) of drilling, and an additional 30,743 gold and silver assays from 146 drill holes totaling 45,540 meters (149,410 feet) of drilling by Dakota Gold. The S-K 1300 database consisted of 910 historical holes (299,888 feet) and 148 Dakota Gold holes (157,504 feet), but 8 historical holes and 2 Dakota Gold holes were outside of the model limits, so were not used in the S-K 1300.
The company has an overall land package of over 49,000 acres, with approximately 14,000 being private land, and the remainder of Dakota Gold’s property position is held under unpatented, federal mining claims on US Forest Service (‘USFS’) or Bureau of Land Management (‘BLM’) administered lands.
For exploration work on unpatented mining claims, notice must be filed with, and approved by, the USFS or BLM, and the SDDANR prior to undertaking any exploration activities.
In addition, a portion of Dakota Gold's mineral rights are composed of various ownerships of patented mineral rights, including private surface lands with mineral rights, mineral rights severed from surface title, and a few parcels of private surface with severed mineral rights. These lands are held 100% by the company, but are in some cases controlled through option to purchase agreements subject to other obligations.
Exploration drilling done on private surface lands requires, in most cases, a notice to be filed with the SDDANR prior to undertaking any exploration activities.
Richmond Hill Project
The Richmond Hill Project consists of more than 3,000 acres of private surface and mineral. It includes the past-producing Richmond Hill mine, and the historical mines of the Carbonate District, as well as multiple prospective areas where gold has been drill-intersected.
The Richmond Hill Project is located in the western portion of Lawrence County, South Dakota, USA. More specifically, the property lies within the Black Hills Meridian, Township 5N, Range 2E, covering portions of Sections 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, and 34. The property is contiguous to Dakota Gold's West Corridor and Blind Gold Properties, and is located approximately 1/2 mile north of the producing Wharf Gold Mine (Coeur Mining).
Maitland Project
The Maitland project area is an important component of Dakota Gold's exploration strategy for the structural corridor that extends from the Homestake Gold Mine to Dakota Gold's Blind Gold Property at the northern end of the Homestake District. In addition to Precambrian-aged gold mineralization hosted within the iron formation, the property area holds several Tertiary-aged zones of mineralization, including historic mines (e.g., Maitland Mine) hosted in the younger Paleozoic sedimentary and Tertiary intrusive rocks.
Barrick Option Project
On September 7, 2021, Dakota Gold entered into a three-year option agreement (the ‘Barrick Option Agreement’) to acquire 4,261 acres of surface rights with attendant facilities and data held by Homestake Mining Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barrick (the ‘Barrick Option’).
The property is located in and around the City of Lead and lies within the Black Hills Meridian, Township 5 N, Range 3 E, covering portions of Sections 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, and 34, and Township 4 N, Range 3 E, covering portions of Sections 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 14, and 15.
History
Dakota Gold Corp. was founded in 2017. The company was incorporated in 2017.