Kirkland intercepted 15.15m at 1,429g/t gold from 345.55m, keeping it at the top of RSC Mining & Mineral Exploration's intercepts of 2017 with a stellar gold-equivalent value* of 21,649.35 AuEq/m.

The result was light years ahead of second-placed Atlantic Gold Corp's (CN:AGB) 4,752 AuEq/m in resource definition drilling at its Fifteen Mile gold project in Canada.

Kirkland's share price rise on the day of 5.6% was just a hallmark of more to come, with its shares seeing a three-fold increase in Toronto over 12 months, rising from C$6.33 to $19.07 about a month ago to last trade at $18.44.

It also listed on the ASX just under a month ago and the tightly-held shares have risen about 26% to A24c.

Record mining results at Fosterville, which accounts for almost half the company's gold production, are a primary factor in Kirkland's low-cost appeal, with the mine's operating cash costs per ounce sold averaging US$281 in the nine months to the end of September.

Kirkland has continued to keep drill bits turning and delivering high-grade exploration results at its projects - including today's 0.91m at 1,624g/t at its recently mothballed Cosmo mine in Australia's Northern Territory.

Projects are only listed once in RSC's table to avoid the same project being ranked multiple times.

According to the table, the top 10 results for the year were taken out by Toronto-listed companies, ahead of the best intercept by any ASX-listed company (Westgold Resources' (AU:WGX) 1,739.2 AuEq/m at Central Murchison).

All bar one of the top intercepts were in the hunt for gold or a gold combination, such as Sandstorm Gold's (CN:SSL) gold-copper-molybdenum intercept at Hot Maden which equated to 2,203.92 AuEq/m.

Last year's winner was the exception - uranium play NexGen Energy (CN:NXE) remained in the table with a 3,048.49 AuEq/m hit at its Rook 1 project but with continuing softer uranium prices, the company's share price has headed lower this year, as has Cordoba Minerals' (CN:CDB) and Nevsun Resources' (CN:NSU).

IAMGOLD Corp (CN:IAG) has seen its share price rise, as has Osisko Mining (CN:OSK), Sandstorm and Leagold Mining Corp (CN:LMC) while Colorado Resources (CN:CXO) remains about the same as this time last year.

The bulk of the top intercepts were found in Canada, with the rest spread between Australia, Colombia, Serbia, Suriname, Turkey and Mexico.

*All commodities converted to AuEq based on selling prices for that week sourced from https://www.quandl.com/collections/markets/commodities