CHEYENNE, Wyo. – U.S. Gold Corp., which also has the Keystone exploration project in Nevada, has received the surface gold mine permit from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality that the company needed to move forward with its CK Gold Project.
“Having previously been granted the industrial siting permit in June last year and now the mine operating permit, we have cleared the major regulatory hurdles towards project development,” said George Bee, president, chief executive officer and director of U.S. Gold.
He said work is underway to meet final authorization, including approval of a reclamation bond, which has already been submitted, and air and water discharge permits. The reclamation performance bond is for a little more than $5 million.
“We remain on track to receive the necessary permits around mid-year, as per prior guidance,” Bee said in the May 8 announcement about the key permit.
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Luke Norman, executive chairman of U.S. Gold, said that “this is an outstanding accomplishment. Since shifting the company’s focus in August 2020 from exploration to the development of the CK Gold Project, the receipt of the mine operating permit is a remarkable achievement.”
He praised the management team, consultants, and Wyoming regulatory authorities for their work to advance the gold and copper project.
Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association, said issuance of the permit “is great news not just for U.S. Gold but for our state. U.S. Gold does things right, and they should be commended on their textbook example of how to get a new mine permitted in Wyoming.”
He said the “CK Gold Project means not only responsible development of our valuable mineral resources, but good paying jobs and revenue to the state to pay for schools. We’re very excited to start mining gold in Wyoming again.”
U.S. Gold has estimated the gold and copper mine could provide up to 200 permanent jobs, and the location mainly on state land means mine royalty revenue collected by the state goes to education in Wyoming.
The company plans an open pit mine and plans to produce a concentrate using flotation technology that would be shipped to a smelter for final processing. No heap leaching will be required, so there will be no cyanide used on site, and there is not any mercury or arsenic in the ore.
The proposed mine is 20 miles west of Cheyenne near the Curt Gowdy State Park on land where there was a small amount of underground mining in the early 1900s. The property is in the historic Silver Crown Mining District. The project is on state and private land.
The mine would be the first hardrock mine in Wyoming in nearly a century. Wyoming is now home to large coal mines, trona and bentonite mines, as well as in-situ uranium mining.
The company also reported that with approval of the mine operating permit, work on updating a prefeasibility study and completing the feasibility study of the project has been restarted. The company said it suspended this work in March 2023 because it did not want a “stale dated” study in relation to the permit approval timeframe.
U.S. Gold had been headquartered in Elko but moved to Cheyenne to concentrate on the CK Gold Project. The company also holds the Keystone exploration property in Lander County but sold its Maggie Creek property to Nevada Gold Mines in November 2022. U.S. Gold also has the Challis Gold Project in Idaho. 
