Western Copper and Gold Corporation (TSX: WRN) (NYSE American: WRN) announces that during its recently completed drill program at its wholly owned Casino Project, Hole DH19-21 returned 55.1 grams per tonne gold over 2.97 metres at a depth of 147.98 m.  A re-assay of this sample returned 65.9 g/t confirming the high gold grade.

This high grade intercept is the third high grade intercept found to date in the deposit (see Figure 1).  Previously intersected high-gold intercepts include 1.85 m grading 73.60 g/t gold in Hole 94-300 located 580 m northwest of DH19-21 and 53.50 g/t gold over 2.5 m in Hole CAS-007 located 730 m northeast (see Table 1).  Each of these high-gold intercepts occurs in or near fault structures and is associated with late phase alteration cross cutting the earlier porphyry related alteration.  Additional, closer spaced drilling is needed to determine the full extent of these gold enriched structures.  Given the 100 metre drill hole spacing in the Casino deposit, it is reasonable to expect that closer spaced drilling is likely to find additional gold bearing structures.

“This third very high grade intercept from within the Casino deposit suggests potential for a number of very high-grade gold structures within the Casino deposit and we look forward to drill testing these structures to fully understand their extent and impact to the overall economics of the Casino Deposit.” said Paul West-Sells, President & CEO.

Table 1: High grade intercepts sampled from the Casino Project.

*Note that reported widths are core length widths and not true widths.

John McClintock, P.Eng., is the qualified person responsible for the execution of the Casino Project exploration program and the preparation of the technical information in this news release.

QA/QC including assurance of chain of custody has been implemented in accordance with industry best practices. Split core samples are prepared and analyzed by ALS Chemex. Prepared samples are initially run using a four acid digestion process and conventional multi-element ICP-AES analysis. Additional assaying for total copper and molybdenum is run using a 4 acid digestion – AES or AAS method to a 0.001% detection limit.  Gold assays are run using 30 gram sample fire assay with an AA finish to a 0.005 ppm detection limit, with samples greater than 10 ppm finished gravimetrically. The QA/QC procedure involves regular submission of Certified Analytical Standards and property specific duplicates, with check assaying for P19-21 performed by SGS Labs and for holes 94-300 and CAS-007 performed by Acme Analytical Laboratories Ltd.

ABOUT WESTERN COPPER AND GOLD CORPORATION

Western Copper and Gold Corporation is developing the Casino Project, Canada’s premier copper-gold mine in the Yukon Territory and one of the most economic greenfield copper-gold mining projects in the world. 

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at 

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