TORONTO, CANADA — (Marketwire) — 07/20/11 — BacTech Environmental Corporation (“BacTech” or the “Company”) (CNSX: BAC) today released the assay results from its 33-hole sonic drill program on the Snow Lake arsenopyrite stockpile in Snow Lake, Manitoba. The program was structured to obtain a confirmation of the historic resource estimates issued previously, and to obtain a representative sample for bioleach test work. The Company is pleased to report that an average grade of 9.6 g/t gold was received from the 33-hole program, which is consistent with previous results.
On April 25, BacTech was granted the rights by Manitoba Innovation, Energy and Mines to remediate the stockpile using the Company–s commercial bioleaching technology. The Company–s plan is to stabilize the arsenic as ferric arsenate and retain the recovered gold and silver for its own account. On May 9, BacTech began a drill program on the stockpile using a 20 m grid spacing that resulted in the drilling of 33 holes roughly 10 m in depth. One half of the recovered core has been stored in Snow Lake, with the balance shipped to Inspectorate Exploration in Vancouver for bioleach test work which is now underway.
At site, samples were taken every 50 cm, which were shipped to the Saskatchewan Research Council in Saskatoon for fire assaying. A total of 432 samples were generated, of which 236 are to be used for a resource calculation. Given the large number of samples, the Company advises the reader to visit the BacTech website at to view a complete list of the drill holes and related samples.
It is anticipated that the Company can now complete the National Instrument 43-101 report on the stockpile with these results. In addition, bioleach test work has begun at the Inspectorate lab in Vancouver, B.C. These results should be available in 3 – 4 months.
“We are pleased that the program went smoothly and that the results appear to confirm our understanding of the content of the concentrate stockpile. The good thing about tailings or, in this case, concentrate, is that we can use a sonic drill to obtain samples from the silt-like material. This allowed us to generate 33 holes in roughly 7 days at a fraction of the cost of a normal drill program,” said Ross Orr, President and CEO of BacTech.
The drill program was supervised by, and the technical disclosures in this press release have been approved by MaryAnn Mihychuk, P. Geo., the Qualified Person responsible for this news release, and a company director.
BacTech also announced today that it has closed the second tranche of its private placement originally announced on June 1. An additional $100,000 was raised through the issuance of 500,000 units at a price of $0.20 each. Each unit is comprised of one common share and one half of a common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to purchase an additional common share at $0.30 until July 16, 2012.
In connection with the closing of the second tranche, BacTech will pay to arm–s length parties finder–s fees totaling $3,000 and issue 15,000 finder–s warrants. Each finder–s warrant will be exercisable into one common share at $0.20 until July 15, 2013. The common shares and underlying securities issued pursuant to the private placement are subject to a four-month hold period which expires November 16, 2011.
BacTech profile
BacTech Environmental holds the exclusive, royalty-free rights to use the patented BACOX bioleaching technology for the reclamation of tailings and mining waste materials. On April 25, BacTech was awarded a contract by the Mines Branch of the Manitoba Department of Innovation, Energy and Mines, to remediate an arsenopyrite gold stockpile situated at the Snow Lake Mine in Snow Lake, Manitoba. This is the Company–s first project since the Plan of Arrangement was completed on December 2, 2010. On June 2, BacTech signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Teamwork of Chihuahua, Mexico, to investigate the use of bioleaching to reclaim some 1 million tonnes of tailings located at the Avalos Smelter in the city of Chihuahua.
Shares outstanding 37,978,361
Contacts:
BacTech Environmental Corporation
Ross Orr
President & CEO
416-813-0303 ext 222