"We can say with conviction that these are some of the finest intercepts any gold company has produced recently - and in any jurisdiction," NovaGold president and CEO Greg Lang said.

Other highlights from the 2017 drilling programme included 39m at 9.34g/t from 342m, 64m at 5.09g/t from 547m and 30.4m at 10.3g/t from 208.6m.

The project already has a 39 million ounce resource at a grade of 2.2g/t but comes with a hefty development price tag of US$6.7 billion, according to a 2011 updated feasibility study. 

Barrick president Kelvin Dushnisky said the drilling results were further evidence of the deposit's potential and the company looked forward to collaborating closely with NovaGold to advance the project.

Lang said they were encouraged by the high-grade intercepts within the reserve pits and beyond the planned pit boundaries.

"As we look to complete the federal permitting process and advance optimisation work during 2018, we are encouraged by the opportunity for NovaGold and Barrick to develop the Donlin Gold project in a fiscally-disciplined manner, and to build a mine of truly generational significance," he said.

The company said Donlin's attributes converged at a time when "no large discoveries have been made in years, average grades continue to fall and resource nationalism is rising to levels that threaten the existence of projects where the rule of law is a novelty".

NovaGold said in January that with $84 million in cash and term deposits at the end of November, it had sufficient funds to complete permitting and optimisation and Donlin and meet its other financial obligations.

Shares in NovaGold lost about 2.5% yesterday and Barrick closed down 1.8% as the gold price also softened.