Mining News 082910: Petroleum News 121403

Transcription

5 Japan plays key role in Alaska
Delegation visits Tokyo businesses to further strengthen mining industry ties
10 Modern mining rush heats up Yukon
Territory bustles with exploration as two underground mines roll toward startup
17 PEA outlines two options for Livengood
Tower Hill investigates heap leach-only initial production at giant gold project
Heatherdale Resources Ltd., a Hunter Dickinson Inc. affiliate, is aggressively exploring the Niblack copper-gold-silver-zinc project on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast
Alaska. Some 18,000 meters of underground drilling completed by the junior over the past year has traced nearly
1,000 meters of precious metal-rich volcanic massive sulfide mineralization under Lookout Mountain. Page 3
PHOTO COURTESY HEATHERDALE RESOURCES LTD.
A special supplement to Petroleum News
WEEK OF
August 29, 2010
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NORTH OF 60 MINING
PETROLEUM NEWS
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WEEK OF AUGUST 29, 2010
PETROLEUM NEWS
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NORTH OF 60 MINING
3
A L A S K A
Explorer expands metal-rich VMS at Niblack
Heatherdale traces long sections of continuous mineralization through Lookout Mountain; new resource, geological model on the way
HEATHERDALE RESOURCES LTD.
By SHANE LASLEY
Mining News
H
eatherdale Resources Ltd., a subsidiary of Hunter Dickinson Inc., is
living up to its pledge to aggressively
explore the Niblack copper-gold-silverzinc project on Prince of Wales Island in
Southeast Alaska. Some 18,000 meters of
drilling completed by the junior over the
past year traced nearly 1,000 meters of precious metal-rich volcanic massive sulfide
mineralization under Lookout Mountain.
Heatherdale optioned the project from
CBR Gold Corp. (now Niblack Mineral
Development Inc.) in July 2009 in hopes of
earning a 51 percent interest in the Niblack
project by spending US$15 million by mid2012.
The junior completed its first US$5 million exploration program in June, and is
currently on track to complete an initial
US$15 million earn-in commitment around
the beginning of 2011.
“We did an announcement when we
were at the US$5 million, and our spending
has remained steady, Lena Brommeland,
Heatherdale’s executive general manager,
told Mining News Aug. 18. “Drilling with
two drills, we continue to find more, and in
typical Hunter Dickinson fashion, we are
going to keep expending the money we
need to develop the resources to move this
project forward.”
Once Heatherdale completes the initial
commitment, it can increase its stake in the
project to 60 percent by spending another
US$10 million and then to 70 percent by
completing a positive bankable feasibility
for the copper-gold-silver-zinc project.
“We fully intend to continue our investment at Niblack to move the project forward in a timely and efficient way,” said
Heatherdale President and CEO Dave
Copeland.
Mine maker
When Heatherdale took over exploration of the project, an area known as the
Lookout zone had a previously defined
indicated resource of 2.272 million metric
tons grading 2.42 g/t gold, 34.66 g/t silver,
1.27 percent copper, and 2.36 percent zinc.
The deposit also had an inferred resource
of 1.712 million metric tons grading 2.08
g/t gold, 32.56 g/t silver, 1.55 percent copper and 3.17 percent zinc. The estimate was
based on a US$50 net smelter royalty cutoff.
What piqued Hunter Dickinson’s interest in the project was high-grade mineralization struck by CBR Gold in an area to
the southwest of the defined resource.
Drilled late in 2008, holes U027 and U028
intercepted a previously unknown precious
metal-rich zone with values nearly three
times greater than the Niblack average.
“In terms of gross metal values, the dollar value of the rock was double and triple
what had been seen in the historic
resource,” Brommeland told Mining News.
The Heatherdale executive characterized the new discovery as a “mine maker.”
“When you can peg into one of the highgrade zones in a deposit and establish substantial tons of that kind of grade, it really
doesn’t take that many tons in order to
make an economic deposit; and so we
established our drill program in that higher
grade mineralization, and we have continued to expand the mineralization in that
zone,” she said.
Precious metal-rich zone grows
Heatherdale began investigating the
higher grade extension of the Lookout zone
by fan drilling the target from a 1,000meter underground exploration drift completed in 2008.
As of mid-July the junior had received
assay results from 10,670 meters of
drilling. The results from these 23 holes,
which were fan-drilled from six underground drill stations, indicate that the precious metals-enriched system located
southwest of the Lookout deposit continues
to expand and remains open in several
directions.
see NIBLACK page 4
Contact North of 60 Mining News:
Publisher: Shane Lasley
e-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 907.229.6289 • Fax: 907.522.9583
North of 60 Mining News is a monthly supplement of the weekly
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fifth week of every month.
Shane Lasley
PUBLISHER & NEWS EDITOR
ADDRESS
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P.O. Box 231647
Anchorage, AK 99523-1647
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NORTH OF 60 MINING
PETROLEUM NEWS
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HEATHERDALE RESOURCES LTD.
continued from page 3
NIBLACK
U029, the first hole of Heatherdale’s
underground program, cut 18.7 meters with
an average grade of 2.4 g/t gold, 48 g/t silver, 1.4 percent copper and 2.8 percent
zinc. The best intersection of the first three
holes was in U031, which cut 43.9 meters
grading 3.01 g/t gold, 76 g/t silver, 2.25 percent copper and 8.66 percent zinc.
These precious metal-rich intercepts
have continued throughout the program.
U052, the most recent hole for which
assays have been released, cut 9.7 meters
averaging 1.49 percent copper, 3.78 percent
zinc, 1.86 g/t gold and 85 g/t silver; and
included 3.8 meter section grading 1.92
percent copper, 6.95 percent zinc, 3.25 g/t
gold and 160 g/t silver.
“The assay results released today confirm the continuity of high-grade VMS
mineralization at Niblack, and reflect a
consistently strong and improving grade
profile and growing resource base,”
Copeland said July 13. “The findings validate our geological team’s growing knowledge of the precious metals-enriched system we’re seeking to delineate, and
enhance our confidence that we will define
a polymetallic VMS deposit with the
grades, volume and other characteristics
necessary to support an economically
robust underground mining operation in
future.”
New geological model
A new resource estimate not only will
outline the high-grade VMS mineralization
the explorer has delineated with its aggressive underground drill program, but also
will debut a new geological model for the
Niblack project.
“I’m looking forward to being able to
tell the world, when we do our new resource
calculations, what we have here,”
Brommeland said. “We have been prettymuch focused on understanding the geology so we can put together the model and
then do a block model that is not only the
grade-shell; it is a model that incorporates
the geological environment,” Brommeland
explained.
The geology under Lookout Mountain is
relatively simple compared to other VMS
deposits. The mineralization has not been
broken up by extensive localized faulting
and folding.
“We have done a bit of a reinterpretation
of the geology. Historically Niblack was
thought to be a very complex structurally
modified deposit – a lot of folding, a lot of
faulting,” Brommeland explained.“We
don’t see a lot of offsetting, and we don’t
see a lot of complex folds. That has been a
The bulk of the drilling completed by Heatherdale Resources has focused on expanding a new mineral-rich zone west of the Lookout Deposit.
U052,the most recent hole for which assays have been released, cut 9.7 meters averaging 1.49 percent copper, 3.78 percent zinc, 1.86 g/t gold
and 85 g/t silver; and included 3.8 meter section grading 1.92 percent copper, 6.95 percent zinc, 3.25 g/t gold and 160 g/t silver.
game-changer for the project. That is something we are definitely using to our advantage as we step out from known mineralization, and continue to expand the deposit.”
This lack of complexity, coupled with
the fact that both exhalative and replacement style mineralization exist, provide for
large continuous sections of thick mineralization.
Exhalative deposits are formed when
ocean water is drawn down and heated by
the volcanic rock, creating a mineral-rich
brine that is then “exhaled” back into the
ocean creating layers of sulfide ore. This
process continues today in the form of
black smokers on the ocean floor. When the
brine is trapped in the ocean floor sediments, it is considered replacement-style
mineralization.
“We see replacement-style mineralogy
as well as exhalative characteristics and
stack sequences,” Brommeland explained.
“It’s complicated in terms of being predictive of where those true exhalative
sequences are, but once you are onto one of
these replacement-style zones they can be
rather large.”
She said the company is encountering
zones that are more than 150 meters thick
with widths in excess of 20 meters and running several hundred meters long.
Connecting the zones
Heatherdale’s drill program has con-
nected the new precious metal-rich zone
to the Lookout deposit, extending
Lookout about 300 meters to the west.
The drills at Niblack have the reach to
continue to expand the deposit in this
direction before the drift needs to be
extended.
“At some point here we will definitely
need to do underground development, and
the timing of that is going to be dependent on when we achieve the maximum we
think we can achieve from the underground stations,” Brommeland explained.
The company has plenty of targets to
investigate before it needs to expand the
exploration drift, a nearly horizontal tunnel. The 1,000 meters of underground
development was dug out to explore the
mineralization to the east of the Lookout
Zone and below the drift where rhyolite,
an intrusive volcanic rock, winds its way
through the mountain.
“We have those underground workings
that provide us with a fantastic platform
for exploration,” Brommeland said. “We
just initiated some holes off to the east (of
the drift). The majority of the drilling that
was done historically was done above the
elevation of the drift, we also have
expanded the resources by drilling below
the elevation of the drift.”
The Trio Zone, which is located about
400 meters from the Lookout Zone as the
VMS mineralization plunges to the east,
is one such target. An inferred resource at
Trio of 493,000 metric tons grading 1.77
percent copper, 3.47 percent zinc, 2.06 g/t
gold and 31.5 g/t silver is included in the
previous estimate for Niblack.
The executive director said if drilling
cuts mineralization in an untested gap of
about 220 meters, some 900 meters of
continuous mineralization from the zone
west of Lookout through Trio will have
been outlined.
From Trio the rhyolite continues along
strike about 800 meters to the Dama Zone
before it turns west on a limb that extends
some 2,100 meters to the historical
Niblack Mine.
A previous intersection at the Dama
Zone cut 19.2 meters grading 6.4 percent
copper, 3.2 percent zinc, 1.37 g/t gold and
53 g/t silver. Because of the folding, it is
anticipated that the mineralization will be
particularly thick in this area.
The lack of geological complexity suggests that VMS mineralization could continue unbroken as it winds it way through
these known zones from the historical
Niblack mine to the newly discovered
zone beyond Lookout.
“This system is amazing actually. All
of our geoscientists that are on the project
have seen a lot of these types of systems,
and they are really impressed with this
one,” Brommeland said. “Their enthusiasm is really kind of contagious!” PETROLEUM NEWS
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NORTH OF 60 MINING
A L A S K A
Japan plays key role in Alaska mining
To further strengthen trade bonds with Pacific Rim neighbor, Alaska delegation provides minerals update to Tokyo business leaders
SUMITOMO METAL MINING POGO LLC
By SHANE LASLEY
Mining News
J
apan is an important player in Alaska’s
mining industry. The island nation
imports more than US$125 million in minerals from the Far North state annually and
Tokyo-based businesses own the Pogo gold
mine and are making significant investments in other mining projects across the
state.
To further strengthen this mutually beneficial bond, Alaska accepted an invitation by
Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. to
update the country’s minerals business community about the state’s mining industry.
A delegation comprised of Alaska
Department of Natural Resources
Commissioner Tom Irwin, Department of
Environmental Conservation Commissioner
Larry Hartig, International Trade Director
Cindy Sims, and Office of Project
Management and Permitting Director Ed
Fogels met with business leaders in Tokyo.
A seminar offered by the Alaska delegation addressed land ownership, mine permitting, and an overview of successful operating mines in the state along with a look
ahead to operations likely to come on line in
the near future.
Fogels told Mining News the Japanese
mining leaders that attended the seminar
were already aware of Alaska’s vast mineral
potential, and the group was primarily interested in learning more about the state’s regulatory environment.
Fogels said he was most impressed with
the long-term vision of the business leaders
that he met in Japan.
Companies like Sumitomo Corp., which
has been in the copper business since early
in the 17th century and operated the Besshi
Mine for 283 years, seek jurisdictions in
which they can have long-standing relationships.
“We’re pleased to have this opportunity
to continue our positive relationship with
one of Alaska’s most important markets and
investors,” Irwin said. “The long-term nature
of natural resource development requires a
continued effort to keep world markets
aware of Alaska opportunities.”
Seeking raw metal
Minerals are an increasingly important
component of the some US$1 billion in
goods that Alaska ships to Japan every year.
In 2009, mining products accounted for
about 14 percent of the US$981 million in
commodities the Far North state shipped to
the island nation.
Japan is nearly 100 percent dependent on
imported minerals. It only has a handful of
operating mines, but has developed a largescale custom smelting sector that processes
about 1.5 million metric tons of copper and
more than 600,000 metric tons of zinc annually.
In order to source the metals it needs to
supply it electronics, automotive and steel
industries, Japan monitors mineral resource
In 2009, three years after putting the Pogo underground gold mine into production,
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. and Sumitomo Corp. bought out Teck’s 40 percent interest, giving the Japanese firms 100 ownership of the Interior Alaska operation.
development and opportunities around the
world.
Japan discovers Pogo
JOGMEC, the host of the mining seminar, is a government organization charged
with ensuring Japan has a reliable source of
needed mineral and energy resources by
providing financial and technical support to
the country’s private sector.
JOGMEC also conducts overseas mineral surveys, and it played an integral role in
the discovery of the Pogo gold mine in
Interior Alaska. The state-owned corporation began conducting geological, geochemical and geophysical investigations of the
area in 1994, which resulted in the discovery
of a 4.5-meter-wide vein of ore grading 27
grams of gold per ton. Sumitomo Metal
Mining took over exploration at Pogo and
eventually partnered with Teck Resources
Ltd., a miner that had experience in both
permitting and operating mines in Alaska.
In 2009, three years after putting the
underground gold mine into production,
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. and Sumitomo
Corp. bought out Teck’s 40 percent interest
in Pogo, giving the Japanese firms 100 ownership of the project.
The buyout represents an investment of
12 years and more than US$350 million in
the Alaska mining venture by the Japanese
firms.
Sumitomo Metal Mining has been a
comprehensive nonferrous manufacturer
since the 16th century. The 400-year-old
business said the acquisition of the remaining interest in Pogo is a significant step
toward it becoming a major force in the nonferrous metals industry.
“Pogo became the first operating mine by
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. outside of
Japan. This is the first step to expand SMM’s
mining business worldwide,” said
Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo President
Nori Ushirone.
Seeking nickel, PGE
Itochu Corp., another enormous and
long-lived Japanese company, has agreed to
invest as much as US$40 million to earn up
to a 75 percent stake in Pure Nickel Inc.’s
750-square-kilometer, high-grade nickelcopper-platinum group element Man property south of the Alaska Range.
The 150-year-old Tokyo-based company
turned to JOGMEC for financial assistance
and technical support when it decided to
become a partner in the Man project.
Under terms of the November 2008
agreement, Itochu can earn a 60 percent
interest in Man by spending US$30 million
on exploration over the first six years of the
option period and can increase its stake in
the property by investing another US$10
million in exploration during the seventh
year of the agreement. The pact also provides for acceleration of the earn-in
timetable.
Itochu, which had the option to get out of
the pact at the end of the 2009 field season,
has confirmed its confidence in the Man
project in Alaska and will proceed with exercising its option to vest its interest.
Based on encouraging results of the 2009
exploration season, the Tokyo-based company decided to increase its exploration spending over the next three years. The budget for
2010 was bumped up to US$7.5 million, a
US$3.5 million increase over the original
agreed upon spending. Pure Nickel said
Itochu also increased its budget to US$8
million for each of 2011 and 2012.
Pure Nickel President and CEO David
McPherson said, “Itochu has a solid reputation for its long-term vision. Itochu’s many
decades of success speak volumes about the
quality of the organization and its people.
We have been fervent believers in the potential of Man, and it is extremely gratifying
that Itochu has embraced our belief in the
property.”
Interest in Alaska coal
Fogels said Japanese business leaders
who attended the seminar also showed keen
interest in Alaska’s vast coal reserves. In
2009 Japan imported nearly 162 million
metric tons of coal, about 92 million tons of
which was thermal coal. Only a very small
amount of this total currently comes from
Alaska.
If Alaska-based Usibelli decides to deve
see JAPAN page 8
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PETROLEUM NEWS
NORTH OF 60 MINING
G U E S T
•
C O L U M N
Columnist tips hat to mine developers
Explorers, miners often fail to appreciate contribution of those who specialize in converting what could be into what should be
By CURT FREEMAN
For Mining News
I
n the last month, several of Alaska’s
major metal mines reported strong
operating numbers; one company released
a preliminary economic assessment and
three new mineral exploration companies
acquired exploration interests in Alaska.
While the functions of explorers and
producers are quite different, the symbiotic relationship between the two ends of
the mining cycle is unequivocal: exploration would not exist without production
and production would eventually cease
without exploration. The middle ground
between the explorers and the miners,
known as the development stage, is occupied by an oddly thick-skinned, often
thin-haired animal that takes exploration
data and forms a mine plan around it. I
heard a mine development engineer once
say that mine development work is like
playing five-card stud with only three
cards – something is always missing. The
explorers think this development beast is
entirely too conservative in his estimates,
while the miners are certain this same
development beast wears permanent rosecolored contact lenses. So perhaps the
most critical stage of the mining cycle is
the one most vilified and mistrusted by
the two extremes?
As a tribute to that beast, this month’s
column is a salute to those of you who
take what could be and turn it into what
should be for those who make it into what
The
author
The author
Curt Freeman,
CPG #6901, is a
well-known geologist who lives in
Fairbanks. He prepared this column CURT FREEMAN
Aug. 20. Freeman can be reached by
mail at P.O. Box 80268, Fairbanks, AK
99708. His work phone number at
Avalon Development is (907) 457-5159
and his fax is (907) 455-8069. His email
is [email protected] and his web site is
www.avalonalaska.com.
it always was!
Western Alaska
TECK RESOURCES LTD. announced
second quarter results from its Red Dog
mine. During the quarter the mine produced 137,900 metric tons of zinc in concentrate. Zinc ore grade decreased to 18.1
percent, while mill recoveries remained
steady at 83.5 percent. The mine also produced 31,300 metric tons of lead in concentrate. Lead ore grade decreased slightly to 5.3 percent while mill recoveries
decreased to 64.6 percent. The mine posted a $31 million operating profit for the
quarter, down significantly from the $40
million profit in the year previous period.
The decreased operating income was
attributed mainly to lower zinc ore grades.
The mine plans to ship 1,025,000 metric
tons of zinc concentrate and 235,000 tons
of lead concentrate from the port facility
this shipping season. The company also
commenced production from the Aqqaluk
deposit in late May as it made its planned
transition to mining of the Aqqaluk
deposit.
TINTINAGOLD RESOURCES
announced initial drilling results at its
Kugruk copper-gold-iron project on the
Seward Peninsula. Initial drilling targeted
the Billiken prospect, a 3-kilometer-long
highly magnetic zone which also shows
high gravity, low resistivity and high
induced polarization geophysical responses. Drilling encountered massive magnetite and copper sulfide mineralization
within a complex assemblage of prograde
garnet-pyroxene exoskarn, actinolite-chlorite retrograde alteration, endoskarn, and
variably altered granodiorite dikes.
Alteration overprints a protolith of marble
and quartz-feldspar to graphitic schist.
Significant drilling results include 22
meters grading 0.065 parts per million
gold, 2.6 parts per million silver, 0.44 percent copper and 48.8 percent iron in hole
KU10-003 and an additional 31.3 meters
grading 0.104 parts per million gold, 4.1
parts per million silver, 0.30 percent copper and 12.1 percent iron in hole KU10003. Mineralization is associated with
widespread skarn alteration on surface
and in drill holes over an area 7 kilometers by 3 kilometers, and its geophysical
On Location
Wherever.
Whenever.
Whatever.
From drill rigs to underground mines to road construction, Judy
Patrick has photographed major projects all over Alaska and around
the globe.
Judy is prepared for any situation with specialized equipment to
be sure she comes back with your best shot. No matter the time,
the place or the season.
judypatrickphotography.com
signature extends at least 15 kilometers
along strike. The entire area is covered by
wind-blown silt and tundra with only
sparse outcrops. Additional drilling and
surface work is under way.
CEDAR MOUNTAIN EXPLORATION
INC. announced commencement of an
initial work program on its Kelly Creek
project on the Seward Peninsula. The
Phase One sampling program is budgeted
at $600,000 and is focused on evaluating
the high priority gold geochemical anomalies that occur within prospective stratigraphy over a 15 kilometer by 5 kilometer
fault-bounded corridor. Limited soil and
stream sediment sampling programs conducted in the past have identified several
prospects within the bounds of the property consisting of coincident gold, arsenic,
antimony, and mercury anomalies. A
coherent gold-in-soil anomaly with continuous elevated gold assays of greater
than 25 parts per billion was traced for
nearly 2 kilometers. In 1984, ANACONDA
COPPER MINING CO. completed three
drill holes (140 meters) within a portion
of the anomalous area, producing drill
intercepts of 1.07 g/t gold over 23.5
meters and 0.83 g/t gold over 32 meters.
Approximately 4,000 soil, stream sediment and rock samples will be collected
during the 2010 program.
MILLROCK RESOURCES INC. and
joint venture partner Kinross Gold Corp.
announced an update of drilling at the
see FREEMAN page 7
PETROLEUM NEWS
•
FREEMAN
Council gold project on the Seward
Peninsula. Approximately 2,062 meters of
reverse circulation drilling in 17 holes had
been completed by late July and all samples had been sent for analysis. Initial
testing of samples with X-ray fluorescence technology identified anomalous
arsenic and antimony in drill samples.
Additional geologic mapping, prospecting
and geochemical sampling are on-going.
MILLROCK RESOURCES INC. and
joint venture partner VALDEZ GOLD
INC. announced that a $1.2 million, 4,500
meter drilling program was planned at the
Council gold project on the Seward
Peninsula. Results are pending.
FIRE RIVER GOLD CORP. announced
additional results from previously unreleased drilling at its Nixon Fork gold project near McGrath. Significant results
include 13 g/t gold over 4.0 meters in hole
N07U066; 20 g/t gold over 4.0 meters in
hole N07U068; and 14 g/t gold over 8.2
meters in hole N07U069. The company
also announced commencement of a
28,000-meter surface and underground
drilling program on the project. Drilling is
commencing on surface targets, particularly lateral or down plunge extensions of
known mineralized zones which have the
potential to provide additional resources.
These types of targets include the
Whalen, North Star, Mystery, Southern
Cross and J5A. Following the surface program, underground drilling will begin
within the Crystal decline. The drill program is designed to expand resources,
particularly in the area of the 3300 zone,
as well as test three to four prospective
zones.
FULL METAL MINERALS LTD.
announced that it has entered into an
option agreement with Alaska newcomer
ANTOFAGASTA MINERALS S.A. to
explore the Pyramid copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry project, located on the
Alaska Peninsula. The project is on land
under lease to Full Metal from ALEUT
CORP., TDX PYRAMID LLC and
SHUMAGIN CORP. An initial 2,000meter core drilling program is under way.
Antofagasta can earn an initial 51 percent
interest by incurring $6 million in expenditures during the first four years and paying Full Metal $200,000 in cash.
Antofagasta can then earn an additional
14 percent interest by preparing and delivering at its sole cost, a Scoping Study
costing a minimum of $4 million.
Antofagasta can then earn an additional
15 percent interest for a total aggregate of
80 percent interest by funding a feasibility
study at its sole cost. The Pyramid deposit
was discovered in 1974 by the AleutQuintana-Duval joint venture, who drilled
1,695 meters in 19 shallow holes in late
1975, identifying a resource of 125 million tons of copper mineralization grading
0.403 percent copper and 0.025 percent
molybdenum in a near-surface zone consisting largely of chalcocite-enriched
rock. More recent exploration by Battle
Mountain Gold in the late 1980’s identified associated gold values that improved
the potential of the project. The 2010
exploration program will consist of a
2,000 meter core drilling program, comprising five or six deep drill holes, targeting the potassic core of the porphyry system. Drilling in the 1970s avoided the
potassic core, with the majority of drill
holes less than 100 meters in length (maximum 168 meters). Welcome to Alaska
Antofagasta Minerals!
Interior Alaska
KINROSS GOLD CORP. announced
second quarter results from the Fort Knox
mine near Fairbanks. The mine produced
86,270 ounces of gold at a cost of $642
per ounce. Production increased in the
second quarter of 2010 when compared to
the same period in 2009 (86,270 ounces
versus 67,391 ounces) as a result of gold
recovered in the companies Walter Creek
heap leach facility. During the quarter the
mill and heap leach processed 7,761,000
metric tons of ore which included
4,420,000 metric tons grading of 0.34 g/t
gold placed on the heap leach pad and
3,341,000 metric tons grading 0.76 g/t
gold processed by the mill. Gold recovery
in the mill averaged 80 percent. Gold
recovery on the heap leach pad was not
released.
TERYL RESOURCES CORP. and joint
venture partner KINROSS GOLD CORP.
announced additional drilling results from
their Gil gold project near Fairbanks.
Significant results in the North Gil zone
include 35 feet grading 0.0788 ounces of
gold per short ton in hole GVR10-568
and 50 feet grading 0.0363 oz/t gold in
hole GVR10-569. Significant results in
the Sourdough zone include 25 feet grading 0.030 oz/t gold in hole GVR10-563.
The partners have completed 5,341 feet of
core drilling and 9,456 feet of reverse circulation drilling. Additional assays for 18
holes are pending.
FIRST STAR RESOURCES announced
that it plans to conduct drilling on its
LMS and WP gold properties in the
Goodpaster Mining District, Alaska.
Initial drilling will consists of 1,500
meters of oriented diamond core drilling
on the LMS property to expand the existing inferred resource calculated for the
gold-bearing graphitic quartzite breccia
and to identify the extent of high grade
gold vein zones. Current published
resources at LMS are 5.86 million metric
tons containing 167,000 ounces of gold at
a grade of 0.89 g/t gold using a cutoff
grade of 0.3 g/t gold.
INTERNATIONAL TOWER HILL
MINES LTD. announced the results from
the initial 19 holes completed in its
45,000-metre summer 2010 drilling campaign at its Livengood gold project.
Significant results from the Lillian
Frontier area include hole MK-RC-0355
which returned 7.6 meters at 3.3 g/t gold
and hole MK-RC-0362 which returned
6.1 meters at 2.9 g/t gold, hole MK-RC0364 which returned 41.2 meters at 1.3
g/t gold in the Sunshine Infill area, and in
the Core Zone Infill areas, holes MK-RC0366 which returned 18.3 meters at 1.2
g/t gold and an additional 83.8 meters at
1.1 g/t gold and hole MK-RC-0372 which
returned 80.8 meters at 1.0 g/t gold. The
company also announced results from its
preliminary economic assessment which
indicated that the combined milling/heap
leach facility would produce an average
7
NORTH OF 60 MINING
annual production of 504,000 recovered
ounces of gold for 21 years, at a 1:1.07
strip ratio (ore to waste), indicating a pretax net present value of $813 million and
an internal rate f return of 15.4 percent
using a $950 per ounce gold price.
Average gold recovery was 78 percent (76
percent for heap leaching and 81 percent
for milling) with an average daily processing rate of 81,000 metric tons per day.
Cash cost per ounce of production came
in at $560 per ounce and initial capital
costs were pegged at $635 million without the mill and an additional deferred
capital cost of $750 million of the mill
complex.
Alaska Range
TRITON GOLD LTD. announced that
it has signed an agreement whereby
Alaska newcomer PANORAMIC
RESOURCES will fund $2.6 million of
drilling at its Tushtena gold project in the
central Alaska Range. Triton has commenced diamond drilling at the Discovery
Zone prospect targeting potentially highgrade gold mineralization below extensive
surface showings of gold in veins and
soils. The first of four holes has been
completed with the 1,600-meter program
scheduled for completion in August.
Under terms of the agreement Panoramic
has the right to earn a 51 percent interest
by funding the balance of approximately
$2.6 million to satisfy a total of US$3.0
million in exploration expenditure
required before June 2013. Triton had
spent US$400,000 on the project and will
manage exploration during the earn-in
phase by Panoramic. Thereafter the parties would contribute to a joint venture in
proportion to their respective interests of
Panoramic Resources, 51 percent; Triton
Gold, 29 percent; and underlying property owner TUSHTENA RESOURCES, 20
percent. Welcome to Alaska Panoramic
Resources!
RHYOLITE RESOURCES LTD.
announced that a detailed geological compilation and validation sampling of core
drilled in 2001 has resulted in the identification of two prospective gold targets on
its wholly-owned Paxson project in the
central Alaska Range. Validation sampling
in hole WG01-01 in the Shalosky zone
returned 0.83 g/t gold over the 38.2
meters including a higher grade interval
averaging 6.45 g/t gold over 2.1 meters.
The second mineralized zone also was
increased to 17.8 g/t gold over 1.3 meters.
Hole WG01-02 returned 1.22 g/t gold
over the 17.4 meter interval, including a
6.9-meter interval averaging 1.98 g/t gold.
Mineralization is dominantly metasediment-hosted with the overall sulfide consee FREEMAN page 8
8
PETROLEUM NEWS
NORTH OF 60 MINING
JAPAN
op the Wishbone Hill Mine north of Palmer
in Southcentral Alaska, some 500,000 tons
a year of the cleaner-burning bituminous
coal will likely be shipped to Japan via
newly constructed loading facilities at Port
MacKenzie on the west side of upper Cook
Inlet, directly across from Anchorage.
J-Power, a Tokyo-based company that
operates 67 power plants with a total output
capacity of about 17,000 megawatts of
electricity, is collaborating with Usibelli on
a feasibility study for Wishbone Hill and is
expected to be the purchaser of coal mined
there.
The feasibility study will be based on 6
million tons of coal reserves identified in
Mine Areas 1 and 2. Usibelli plans to excavate 500,000 tons of coal annually for
FREEMAN
tent varying from less than 1 percent to
more than 10 percent. There is a strong
correlation between gold, arsenic and antimony. Geological compilation work also
identified a second target that has never
been drill tested and which lies 3 kilometers east-southeast of the Shalosky area.
Known as the Low showing, hand trenching in 2001 returned 8.6 g/t gold over 9.8
meters including a 3.8 meter interval
averaging 14.3 g/t gold. Mineralization
remains open in both directions under
talus cover. The OTG showing, located
between the Shalosky and Low showings,
returned grab samples ranging in value
from no significant gold up to 5.3 g/t
gold. This area has never been drill tested
but will require additional geochemical
and geological work to determine if a drill
target can be defined.
CARIBOU COPPER RESOURCES
LTD. announced the results of its recent-
ly completed trenching program at its
Caribou Dome project in the Valdez
Creek District. Significant results
include 2.69 percent copper over 2
meters in Trench 1, 3.23 percent copper
over 3 meters, in Trench 3, 4.03 percent
copper over 7 meters in Trench 4, 1.7
percent copper over 7 meters in Trench 7
and 3.78 percent copper over 2.5 meters
in Trench 11. The trenching program
exposed copper mineralization in nine
trenches in the eastern portion of known
surface mineralization. These trenches
intersected lodes 3, 7 and 8, which have
received minimal past exploration.
Trenching extended mineralization
approximately 215 meters horizontally
eastward and 90 meters of vertically
from the previously drilled lodes. The
mineralization is contained primarily
within two thin black shale and limestone horizons enclosed within a package of intermediate to mafic volcanic
and intrusive rocks. Mineralization consists primarily of chrysocolla and malachite in fractures and shears within black
shale.
MILLROCK RESOURCES INC.
announced that it has entered into an
agreement with Alaska newcomer
BRIXTON METALS CORP. for the
exploration of Millrock’s Monte Cristo
and St. Eugene properties in the Kahiltna
region of southern Alaska. Under terms
of the agreement, Brixton can earn a 100
percent interest in the Monte Cristo
claim group in return for a cumulative
$5 million in exploration expenditures,
US$350,000 in cash payments, 1.5 million Brixton shares and 1.5 million
about 12 years from these two regions.
“J-Power has been identified as the most
likely purchaser of the coal. They have
expressed interest in purchasing all of the
output from Wishbone Hill,” said Usibelli
project spokeswoman Lorali Carter. “They
currently buy coal from Healy. So this coal
would be in addition to what they already
purchase.”
The feasibility study also will include
analysis of transportation options, updates
to project permits and gathering additional
environmental information.
As part of the feasibility study, the JP
Azure, a super-Panamax ship, was loaded
with Usibelli Coal at Port MacKenzie in
May. Too large to transit the Panama Canal,
the vessel, laden with 76,000 tons of coal
loaded in Seward, successfully docked at
the new Matanuska-Susitna Boroughowned port, where another 1,250 tons
trucked down from Healy topped off its
Brixton share purchase warrants with an
exercise price of US$1 per share over a
four-year term. The target is a large
intrusion-related gold or porphyry copper-gold deposit. Extensive alteration
zones with strongly anomalous gold and
copper values were detected. Additional
work is presently under way to further
characterize the alteration and better
define the new mineral discoveries.
Welcome to Alaska Brixton Metals
Corp.!
FULL METAL MINERALS LTD.
announced commencement of a 1,000meter drilling program at the GrizzlyButte copper-gold porphyry project in
the Talkeetna Mountains. Drilling will
target a horseshoe-shaped copper anomaly with values greater than 280 parts per
million copper that measures 2,500
meters from east to west and up to 700
meters in north-south dimension. A high
of 4,020 parts per million copper occurs
within the widest portion of the anomaly,
and is associated with an area of potassic
alteration. In total, 350 soil samples were
collected during 2010, with 17 percent
returning in excess of 280 parts per million copper. A total of 190 rock chip
samples were collected on the property,
of which 26 assayed greater than 0.1 percent copper, with two greater than 1.0
percent copper. Recently completed geologic mapping has identified a potassic
altered diorite intrusive unit, with classic
phyllic altered halo. Disseminated copper and gold mineralization has been
identified within the heart of the alteration zone, as well as within sediment
replacement bodies. Induced polarization-resistivity surveys were completed
over four lines totaling 14 line kilometers. A coincident induced polarization
high and resistivity high with a radius of
600 to 800 meters occurs within the
heart of the soil anomaly and the potassic altered intrusive units
HARMONY GOLD CORP. announced
that it continues working toward the
objective of developing the Lucky Shot
gold project in 2011. The company
expects to reach the following milestones
in the third quarter of 2010: complete a
resource estimate for the Coleman
deposit; complete all required environmental baseline studies for environmental permitting; complete the engineering,
design and reclamation plans for the
final mine design; complete the metallurgical testing for environmental permitting and a more definitive gold recovery
process; complete the electrical design
work; prepare an air permit; and complete dispersion modeling of the emissions from the operation and submit the
full mine permit applications. At present
load. The massive freighter transported the
coal from the upper Cook Inlet facility to JPower’s plants in Japan.
While in Japan the Alaska delegation
visited J-Power’s Isogo power plant, which
ranks as the cleanest coal-fired power plant
in the world in terms of emissions intensity, with emissions comparable to those
from natural gas-fueled power facilities.
Each of Isogo’s two power units is capable
of churning out 600 megawatts of electricity, or roughly the power consumption of
the entire state of Alaska.
An eye on Pebble
Japan also is watching developments at
the Pebble project in Southwest Alaska.
Tokyo-based Mitsubishi owns stock in
Pebble partner Northern Dynasty Ltd., giving the mega-corporation a more than 5
percent stake in the copper-gold-molybdenum project.
the mill construction is 80 percent complete.
Southeast Alaska
HECLA MINING announced secondquarter 2010 production from the Greens
Creek mine on Admiralty Island. The
cash cost per ounce of silver for the quarter was a negative US$4.56 per ounce of
silver. The average grade of ore mined
during the quarter was 12.4 ounces of silver per ton. During the second quarter the
mine produced 1,831,279 ounces of silver, 17,880 ounces of gold, 6,535 tons of
lead and 19,481 tons of zinc. Total production costs for the quarter were
US$2.75 per ounce of silver produced.
Tonnage milled rose to 2,252 tons per
day and capital expenditures during the
second quarter totaled US$4 million. On
the exploration front, definition and
exploration drilling of the NWW zone in
the northern part of the mine have
defined and extended two distinct limbs
of a major folded orebody for over 200
feet down dip. Variable widths of massive
sulfide up to 42 feet have been intersected on the two limbs of the fold. The drill
intercepts contain higher than expected
grades of precious metals such as: 0.72
ounces of gold per ton and 75.6 ounces
of silver per ton with base metals over
2.6 feet. The closest previous holes above
this area grade 0.27 ounces of gold per
ton and 33 ounces of silver per ton plus
base metals over 41 feet in the upper
limb and 0.28 ounces of gold per ton and
4.9 ounces of silver per ton with base
metals over 7.7 feet on the lower limb.
Drilling from the 1147 Drift targeted the
projection of the 200 South zone to the
south and west. The first three holes
completed included a 13-foot section of
massive sulfide that graded 0.25 ounces
per ton gold, 2.1 Drilling from the 1147
Drift targeted the projection of the 200
South zone to the south and west. The
first three holes completed included a 13foot section of massive sulfide that graded 0.25 ounces of gold per ton, 2.1
ounces per ton silver, 2.1 percent lead
and 23.3 percent zinc. The second hole
intersected a 30-foot interval of baritic
ores and silicified argillite with elevated
silver grades, 2.1 percent lead and 23.3
percent zinc. The second hole intersected
a 30-foot interval of baritic ores and silicified argillite with elevated silver
grades.
COEUR D’ALENE MINES CORP.
announced second quarter 2010 production from its Kensington gold mine north
of Juneau. Production started ahead of
schedule and is on track for targeted
2010 production of approximately 50,000
ounces The process plant is operating at
•
This is part of Mitsubishi’s non-ferrous
metals division strategy to “make foreign
investments to secure raw materials, mainly focusing on copper concentrate, aluminum bullion, and precious metals.” The
company turns these raw metals into products that can be used in Japan and sold
abroad.
Japan’s interest in Bristol Bay goes
beyond Mitsubishi’s desire to secure an
interest in the massive stores of copper,
gold and molybdenum at Pebble. The
island nation imported nearly US$540 million worth of Alaska seafood in 2009, making it the state’s largest international
seafood market.
While visiting Tokyo, the Alaska natural
resources delegation also met with
Japanese seafood buyers at the Japan
International Seafood and Technology
Expo, one of the world’s largest seafood
shows. design tonnage of 1,250 short tons per
day, ahead of schedule. Recovery rates
during the initial month of ramp-up were
consistent with plan and expected to
climb as processing of higher-grade ore
begins The first two gold concentrate
shipments have been sent to CHINA
NATIONAL GOLD CORP., the first
arrangement of its kind between a
Chinese state-owned corporation and a
U.S. precious metals mine. Annual average gold production is expected to be
approximately 125,000 ounces over the
initial 12.5-year mine life. Projected average life-of-mine cash operating costs are
US$490 per ounce. The company also
noted that exploration in the mine area
was restarted in the second quarter. The
main focus of this work was on the
Horrible vein structure, a prominent,
gold-bearing quartz vein and vein swarm
situated about 650 meters west of the current production. A total of 9,941 feet of
core drilling was completed at Horrible
in the second quarter. Drilling has cut
multiple quartz-vein structures down-dip
and on-strike of the known zone. Drilling
will continue on Horrible and other nearby targets in the third quarter.
CONSTANTINE METAL
RESOURCES LTD. announced results for
the first three drill holes for the ongoing
2010 drill program at the company’s
Palmer copper-zinc-gold-silver volcanogenic massive sulfide project near
Haines. Significant results include the
RW Zone where step-out hole CMR10-35
intersected 7.1 meters grading 2.10 percent copper, 1.52 percent zinc, 0.18 g/t
gold and 16.8 g/t silver, including 4.15
meters grading 3.13 percent copper, 0.62
percent zinc, 0.23 g/t gold and 23.9 g/t
silver. The intersection expands the RW
Zone 45 meters along strike to the westnorthwest. At the South Wall Zone I,
step-out drill hole CMR10-34 intersected
10.4 meters of precious metal-rich baritic
massive sulfide mineralization grading
0.30 percent copper, 4.18 percent zinc,
0.42 percent lead, 0.87 grams of gold per
tonne and 81.6 grams of silver per tonne.
This intersection extends South Wall
Zone I mineralization 70 meters up-dip
and expands the total vertical extent of
South Wall mineralization to 430 meters.
The South Wall includes three distinctive
stratigraphically stacked zones that occur
on the steep limb of a large anticlinal
fold. The RW Zone occurs on the opposite fold limb and is stratigraphically
equivalent to the South Wall. The presence of massive sulfide on both sides of
the fold indicates a sizeable massive sulfide system, with zones on each limb
offering excellent opportunity for further
expansion. PETROLEUM NEWS
•
C O L U M N
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9
Resource quandary evokes famous poem
Coleridge’s ‘water, water everywhere’ calls to mind Alaska’s dwindling revenue sources despite varied opportunities for prosperity
By J. P. TANGEN
For Mining News
“Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
—The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
Samuel Coleridge (1798)
A
s we approach the 2010 primary
election (which will be history by
the time this article is read), it is worth
pondering how rapidly Alaskans, like the
crewmates of the Ancient Mariner, are
plunging toward oblivion in the midst of a
sea of plenty. The warnings of those who
opposed statehood are now beginning to
take shape. Alaska will never be able to
feed itself, they argued.
Proponents pointed to the vast wealth
of the state and for a brief moment in
time their faultless logic prevailed. But
now a mere 50 years later, we find ourselves approaching the brink.
The timber industry is gone. The vast
fisheries, which engendered Seattle fortunes, are a shadow of what they once
were. Oil is on the decline. The dream of
a gas pipeline has evaporated. Mining is
under incessant attack. Even tourism,
which was a tenuous industry at best,
has been pretty much forced onto the
ropes. The cause for most of these
calamities is not uniform, but there is a
common theme.
Timber was simply hounded into
oblivion by thoughtless people who
couldn’t see the trees for the forest.
Perhaps turning Tongass timber into cellophane was not the best use for the
Sitka spruce; however, it does seem like
a waste to let it rot on the ground or die
of beetle infestation. The willingness of
Alaska to sell its fisheries into an
ungrateful market is legend. It is only a
curious twist of fate that the deadliest
industry has found its way into folk hero
status. Oil has been a wonderful benefactor and has taught us really bad
spending habits for more than 30 years,
yet anyone who cannot hear the sound of
the pipeline being dismantled and the
corridor being reclaimed isn’t listening.
The whole gas debacle gives a new
meaning to the concept of a pipedream.
Any hope that gas would fill the State’s
coffers went down the tubes exactly four
years ago, when God’s plan was
revealed. Tourism, ironically, was an
easy target. The imposition of water
treatment standards so stringent that a
cruise ship cannot tie up to the dock in
Anchorage and take on municipal water
without fear that if it spills any into the
Inlet, it could be fined, has to be a new
high in heavy-handed insanity.
Mining, which should be our brightest
hope, finds itself fending off not just the
environmentalists but now also the very
people it would feed.
The ballad of Bob Gillam is so familiar to everyone by now, it is almost trite.
He has successfully poisoned the well
and the goose that drinks its water.
Pebble has been the target of initiatives on every front. Currently, half a
dozen tribal entities from Southwest
Alaska are petitioning EPA to use a rare
power to stop Pebble before it even
applies for the first permit. Litigiously
speaking the Superior Court has deter-
Mining
& the
law
The author,
J.P. Tangen has
been practicing
mining law in
J.P. TANGEN
Alaska since 1975. He can be reached at
[email protected] or visit his Web site at
www.jptangen.com. His opinions do not
necessarily reflect those of the publishers
of Mining News and Petroleum News.
mined that it wants to hear arguments as
to why the Department of Natural
Resources may have failed to do its job
in issuing permits to the Pebble Project
for the past 20 years. Legislatively
speaking, the push is on to displace legislators who are not opposed to the project. A recent casual poll of a small number of candidates reveals that even supervoters, the people who frame our elections, have serious reservations about the
project. So goes Pebble, so goes the mining industry.
The obvious problem is that the opponents to statehood were right. Alaska
cannot feed itself without a vigorous
resource development industry, and vigor
is getting to be a rare quality. Our legislators, no matter who is elected in
November, will arrive in Juneau to build
a budget based upon anticipated receipts
not in the offing. As burdensome taxation fails to result in sufficient revenue
to support our lavish lifestyle, tax hawks
will seek other prey. The descending spiral will push Alaska into the pit, proba-
“Alaska cannot feed itself without
a vigorous resource development
industry, and vigor is getting to be
a rare quality.”
— J.P. Tangen, guest columnist
bly – if the past is any prologue – just
about the time the rest of America has
recovered from the Obama recession.
The picture of thirst in a sea of plenty
is hardly a pretty one, but it surely is one
with which all Alaskans should become
familiar. Somewhere among the electorate there must be at least a few souls
who can spot the trend, but they are not
selling the message very well. Perhaps it
is now time to decide who will be the
one to turn off Alaska’s lights after
everyone else has left. Available now at the low price of $78.00 per year. Order now!
10
G
PETROLEUM NEWS
NORTH OF 60 MINING
Y U K O N
•
T E R R I T O R Y
Explorers trek to mining-friendly Yukon
Territory works to spur resource development as two more mines begin countdown to startup this fall; more juniors kick the rocks
ROSE RAGSDALE
By ROSE RAGSDALE
For Mining News
T
HISTLE CREEK, Yukon Territory –
The Bell Jet Ranger helicopter just
landed, while the A-Star unloaded passengers before powering down its engines on
the other side of the creek. A third, smaller
copter whined as its rotors buffeted
bystanders with gusts of dust and debris
during takeoff. Meanwhile, a small plane
soared overhead.
Welcome to the Dawson Mining District
of central Yukon in early August. Or as one
wag joked: “JFK West!”
Visitors prepared to tour Kaminak Gold
Corp.’s mining exploration camp here as a
three-man cable television crew scurried
out of the tree line, running onto to the gravel runway in search of a scoop. All around
them, the real story was unfolding on this
rough, remote airstrip, used by several companies with mining claims in the area
including Kinross Gold Corp., the new
owner of the White Gold Project, which lies
just 25 kilometers, or 16 miles, to the north.
Yukon’s modern-day mining rush is on,
and all signs point to this being just the
beginning.
A score of explorers like Kaminak are
working hard to follow up on Underworld
Resources’ White Gold discovery in 2008
by chasing other, potentially bigger, gold
deposits they believe lie beneath their feet in
this unglaciated part of the world.
But Yukon’s mining rush is bigger than
the White Gold play. A growing crowd of
juniors are searching for the yellow metal
on claims in the Whitehorse and Mayo mining districts, farther south and east. Still
other explorationists are hotly pursuing
major deposits of lead and zinc, copper and
gold, silver and rare earth elements across
the territory.
Yukon policymakers, meanwhile, are
busy doing all they can think of to ease the
way for these explorers, urging them to
chase their theories of where mineral
resources continue to hide in this underexplored region, and in the process, pour
millions of investment dollars into the territory’s economy.
The strategy appears to be working.
Yukon officials say mining investment in
the territory is battling back from recessioninduced lows to possibly top C$120 million
this year, up substantially from about C$90
million in 2009.
“Yukon Territory is an exciting place to
be. It’s incredibly busy,” said Mike Burke,
Alexco Keno Hill Mines Corp. is targeting an October startup for silver production at Bellekeno Mine near Mayo in central Yukon Territory.
head of Mineral
Geological Survey.
Services,
Yukon
Staking rush is on
An important sign of more intensive
activity is the number of mining claims
staked in Yukon this year. The territory’s
total active quartz claims, including 32,692
claims staked during in the first seven
months of 2010, jumped to nearly 110,000,
up about 38 percent from last year’s record
total of just under 80,000 claims.
In Yukon, prospectors and explorers still
stake mining claims in the traditional way.
They must obtain claim tags from the mining recorder, a unit of the territorial government, and walk off the boundaries of their
claims on Crown land, using posts to mark
out a rectangle no bigger than 1,500 feet on
each side. Each claim costs C$10, and owners have to do at least C$100 of work a year
on each claim (or pay C$100) to maintain
their rights to the land.
Kaminak President and CEO Robert L.
Carpenter said he likes Yukon’s requirement
to physically stake mining claims, which is
“a rigorous process that is somewhat costly.”
“What I like about working in the Yukon,
is it keeps out guys who can’t afford it,” he
said. “Every junior mining company in
Vancouver with C$120,000 in the bank can’t
come up here. The market is not giving
money right now to ‘fly-by-nighters.’ The
recession is on, and we’re spending C$8 million bucks up here this year.
“But nine out of 10 guys in Vancouver
are sitting there with their pockets like this,
because they can’t get money for their projects,” Carpenter said, turning out his pockets. “And that’s good because it has enabled
us to stake 45 kilometers,” he added.
The latest claims rush reflects the most
staking activity in the territory since the
Wolverine deposit was discovered in the
Finlayson Mining District of southeastern
Yukon in 1994, according to Burke.
Two more mines set to open
Chinese-owned Yukon Zinc. Corp. is one
of two companies expected to bring online
two mining operations in Yukon this fall.
Yukon Zinc aims to start production at a
newly built 1,700-metric-ton-per-day underground mine to tap the zinc/silver-rich
Wolverine deposit, which contains measured and indicated resources of about 4.46
million metric tons grading 12.14 percent
zinc, 354.8 grams per metric ton silver, 1.16
percent copper, 1.69 g/t gold and 1.58 percent lead.
Yukon Zinc had hoped to begin production in the second quarter, but the company
said a worker’s death in late April shifted its
focus to underground testing and geotechnical modeling, as well as developing
enhanced safety protocols and procedures to
ensure a safe work environment. A comprehensive plan for a range of ground conditions is currently being completed.
Alexco Keno Hill Mining Corp., a subsidiary of Alexco Resource Corp., intends to
start up a mining operation in October at its
Bellekeno silver project in the historic Keno
Hill silver district in east-central Yukon.
Bellekeno, the first of potentially numerous
silver deposits that Alexco hopes to mine in
the area, will be a 250 t/d operation for years
1 and 2 and increase throughput to 400 t/d in
years 3 to 5. The Keno Hill district, once
home to at least 35 small mines, produced
about 217 million ounces of silver between
1921 and 1988.
In addition to indicated and inferred
resources of 400,000 and 111,000 metric
tons, respectively, grading 921 g/t and 320
g/t silver, 9.4 percent and 3.1 percent lead,
and 6.9 and 6.5 percent zinc, in the
Bellekeno deposit, Alexco aims to mine a
see YUKON OVERVIEW page 11
PETROLEUM NEWS
•
NORTH OF 60 MINING
ROSE RAGSDALE
YUKON OVERVIEW
nearly 2.5 Mt indicated resource in historic
tailings nearby grading 119 g/t silver, 0.12
g/t gold, 0.99 percent lead and 0.70 percent
zinc with contained precious metal of more
than 9.5 million ounces of silver and 9,600
ounces of gold. The company also aims to
mine additional high-grade silver and gold
deposits on its extensive claims in the district.
Labor force impact is mixed
Prospector Shawn Ryan, right, studies maps of the Coffee gold project with his field crew boss,
Isaac Fage. Ryan is credited with sparking the recent Yukon Territory gold rush by leading
Underworld Resources Inc. to a major discovery on the White Gold property. Kaminak Gold
Corp. is exploring gold targets at Coffee initially identified by Ryan with soil sampling and
trenching. His company, Ryanwood Exploration Inc., hired 32 workers to collect up to 70,000
soil samples this summer, double the 35,000 samples it collected in 2009.
ing exploration camp.
“The Yukoners can drive 5-speed trucks,
and many have hunting licenses, which
means they know how to use a gun. It’s
important to have a gun in camp,” Harris
said.
Debbie James, Northern Freegold’s project geologist at Freegold Mountain, said one
Yukoner had even worked in the forestry
industry and knew how to operate a chain
saw. “The students can’t do these things,”
she said. “Yukoners are glad to have the jobs
and they are happy to do everything.”
Mining incentives help
“We’ve passed regulations and legislation in the past (few) years such at the
Quartz Mining Act to make Yukon Territory
a friendly environment for responsible peo-
ROSE RAGSDALE
However, unemployment is up this year
among the sparsely populated territory’s
17,800 workers, jumping 1.1 percentage
points to 7.8 percent in July. Though jobless
claims increased during the height of the
mining season, they remained below
Canada’s national unemployment rate of 8
percent. The territory’s work force, meanwhile, grew by about 100 individuals during
the past 12 months, and several training programs have spawned a score of skilled
workers for the burgeoning mining sector.
Northern Freegold Resources Ltd.,
which has discovered at least eight substantial mineral deposits on its huge districtscale Freegold Mountain Project at the
southern end of the Dawson Mining District
hired several graduates of the Yukon Mine
Training Association’s mine apprenticeship
program, which focuses on training First
Nations members for jobs in the mining
sector.
Bill Harris, Northern Freegold’s chairman and chief operating officer, said the
trainees brought hidden benefits to their
jobs. In the past, the junior hired university
students to fill entry-level positions but
soon found that many of the students did not
enjoy doing the grunt work needed in a min-
Helicopters stir dust and debris taking off and landing at this remote gravel airstrip near
Thistle Creek in the White Gold district. A number of juniors and Kinross Gold Corp. are
exploring gold projects in this area of west-central Yukon Territory.
ple to do business here,” said Patrick
Rouble, Yukon’s Minister of Energy, Mines
and Resources. “In many ways, we work to
support mining, from grassroots exploration
to having an option-able property in under
five years. That’s pretty impressive.”
Burke said Yukon’s emerging mining
boom has been years in the making, dating
back to 2003 when Canada’s federal government transferred the authority to make
such decisions about natural resource development to the territorial government in a
process known as “devolution.”
With a focus on mutually beneficial collaboration, the territory has worked with its
14 First Nations, most of whom have settled
their land claims, and with companies to
form partnerships for mining ventures.
“All of our First Nations are businessready, including the three that haven’t settled their land claims,” Burke said.
The territory’s support for grassroots
mining exploration is becoming the stuff of
legends with the ongoing success of celebrated prospector Shawn Ryan.
Ryan happily credits the territory’s
Yukon Mining Incentives Program with giving him critical funds to get started in the
form of a C$10,000 annual grant. For more
than a decade, Ryan has explored and
staked property all over Yukon Territory,
including the White Gold claims, and he has
optioned claims to at least a half-dozen juniors now seeking Yukon gold. Ryan currently owns 20,000 active mining claims and a
rapidly growing prospecting and geophysical services business and recently expanded
and relocated his operation from Dawson to
Whitehorse, the territorial capital.
The territorial Legislature, meanwhile,
11
has approved more funding for YMIP in
hopes of spurring even more grassroots
mining exploration.
Once the mining companies started
coming, Yukon officials sought ways to provide additional support. That effort materialized at the Yukon Strategic Industry
Development Fund.
“The government was looking for ways
to be in the game. Of course we don’t have
the resources to get involved to the extent
that Quebec does,” said Clint Ireland, manager of large projects for the Yukon Ministry
of Economic Development. “We wanted to
show the mining industry our support, but
we knew we couldn’t afford to be involved
as an investor. So far, the fund has invested
C$1 million a year in mine projects for the
past five years, or a total of C$5 million.”
Ireland said mining companies have
used modest grants from the fund to offset
costs of transportation and energy studies
and to assist with economic aspects of scoping, and feasibility studies.
“The Yukon government gave us a grant
to get going, and it’s much appreciated,”
Carpenter said. “I’ve worked a lot in other
places in Canada. Coming to the Yukon,
you’ve got trees, and the weather is not that
bad.
Miners applaud regulatory process
In 2003, Yukon lawmakers approved the
Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic
Assessment Act to establish a process to
assess the environmental and socio-economic effects of projects and other activities
in the Yukon or that might affect the Yukon
and passed regulations in the ensuing years
to accompany the Act.
Mining companies say the YESSAA
process has proven to be reasonable and
speedy.
“In our first year, we managed to get all
of our permits, our forestry permit and all of
our drilling permits, quite expeditiously,”
said Carpenter. “We’re in a jurisdiction that
wants us here. It’s an overlooked place by
the mining industry. Part of me would like
to keep the Yukon all to myself, but the word
is out. Because of gold fever, I think the jig
is up. Everybody knows. I would have liked
to have another year of quiet.”
In addition to streamlining regulations,
Yukoners have tweaked their royalty and
taxation regime to ensure that it is competitive with other top mining jurisdictions.
Yukon’s YESAA process, for example, not
only serves as the territory’s environmental
review required for all mine projects, it also
replaces the Canada Environmental Act
review.
Yukon also capped its escalating scale of
mine royalties at 12 percent for projects
see YUKON OVERVIEW page 13
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13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations.
We are dedicated to our Shareholders, our
customers, and our mission. Pride, respect and
diversity guide us, and our business, in all that we do.
Delivering excellence in the projects we build,
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12
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Miners rock first-ever ‘Dawson Rocks’
One-day conference brings together prospectors, juniors, geologists in midst of field season to share core, samples and insights
ROSE RAGSDALE
By ROSE RAGSDALE
For Mining News
D
ROSE RAGSDALE
Mining exploration and production companies gathered at the first-ever Dawson Rocks conference Aug. 11 in
Dawson, YT to show off samples and share insights about the geology of Yukon Territory.
ROSE RAGSDALE
AWSON, Yukon Territory – “If we hold it, they will come,” reasoned Mike Burke, head of Mineral Services at the Yukon
Geological Survey.
True to his expectations, some 70 prospectors, geologists and junior
companies flocked to a Front Street meeting hall here Aug. 11 for the
first-ever “Dawson Rocks,” a one-day rock show/conference in what is
fast becoming one of the world’s hottest hardrock mining jurisdictions.
A jovial crowd, attendees ranged from prospectors pedaling lucrative
quartz claims to juniors touting new mineral discoveries.
Andy Randell, project geologist for Victoria Gold Corp., presided
over a colorful display of samples from the Eagle Gold Project in central Yukon. In April Victoria released a NI 43-101 resource estimate of
66 million metric tons grading 0.82 grams per metric ton gold for Eagle.
The junior envisions developing the deposit as a 26,000 t/d open pit
mine with full production in 2014.
Jason McLaughlin, vice president exploration for newly created
Dawson Gold Corp., showed off samples as his table. Dawson Gold
aims to spend C$1.5 million to C$2 million to drill targets, beginning in
late August, at its Tad-Toro properties, including three soil anomalies
identified in the Nit Zone. Dawson Gold’s stock began trading on the
TSX Venture Exchange Aug. 12. The newly minted junior is seeking
potentially significant porphyry and gold deposits.
Another junior, Tarsis Resources showed off rock samples from its
new polymetallic White River discovery in western Yukon. Tarsis also
owns the Prospector Mountain Project, where it made a high-gold discovery in the Bonanza Zone in 2009. Tarsis subsequently optioned that
property to Silver Quest Resources.
Northern Tiger Resources, a junior with more than a half-dozen
Yukon properties, including its principal project, Sonora Gulch, displayed arguably the most exciting rock sample at the show, a huge specimen with spectacular visible gold coating a fracture in an exposed
quartz vein found on its new 3Ace property in southeastern Yukon. Nine
grab samples gathered on the site contained minor to abundant coarse
visible gold and returned gold values up to 4,820.6 g/t (140.60 ounces
per ton) gold.
At Sonora Gulch, Northern Tiger has identified a near-continuous
gold-in-soil anomaly over 6 kilometers by 1.5 kilometers, or 4 miles by
1 mile, with average gold values in 1,971 samples of 56 parts per billion.
In addition to exploration project displays, Yukon Geological
Survey’s project geologist Maurice Colpron gave a technical overview
of the Yukon’s hardrock geology, complete with slide show.
Other juniors new to the Yukon also attended the conference. Among
them: A.M. Gold, which intends to spend C$1.5 million exploring the
Red Mountain property near Golden Predator Corp.’s Gold (Scheelite)
Dome Project north of Mayo.
“We have 3,000 acres. We’ve drilled the first of two holes that we
have planned for this season, but we have no results yet,” said Neil
Downey, the company’s vice president. Northern Tiger Resources displayed these high-grade
samples of gold and copper/molybdenum from the
Sonora Gulch property in central Yukon at the
Dawson Rocks conference Aug. 11.
Marc G. Blythe, president of Tarsis Resources, shows
off rock samples from the company’s new White
River discovery at the Dawson Rocks conference.
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PETROLEUM NEWS
A helicopter queues up for refueling while another waits for passengers near the in
the Supremo zone discovery hole on Kaminak Gold Corp.’s Coffee property in westcentral Yukon Territory.
Northern Freegold Resources Chairman and COO Bill Harris and project geologist Debbie
James admire core samples with high gold content at the Freegold Mountain Project in central Yukon Territory.
Y U K O N
T E R R I T O R Y
Drilling, deep-imaging surveys top strategies as juniors join one
major and sole producer in seeking new pockets of mineralization
For Mining News
D
AWSON, Yukon Territory –
Hardrock mining explorers are capitalizing on unprecedented investor interest
and going after paying gold, silver, copperrich porphyry, lead-zinc and other metal
deposits here with uncommon gusto this
summer.
A few years ago, a multimillion-dollar,
single-season exploration program would
have been a rare commodity in the Yukon.
But this year, at least a half-dozen juniors
have joined one major, Kinross Gold
Corp., and the Yukon’s only producer,
Capstone Mining Corp., in forking over
megabucks to poke around this picturesque, mountainous country in search of
lucrative minerals. Numerous smaller
exploration plays also are whipping up a
frenzy of activity on the periphery of the
larger projects.
All of the explorers are sinking hard-
YUKON OVERVIEW
with more than $35 million in annual revenue.
Juniors pour
millions into
Yukon projects
By ROSE RAGSDALE
won cash by the millions into just a few
short weeks of claim staking, drilling,
prospecting and surveying. And they are
carrying out these intense exploration campaigns with a new, almost tangible, sense of
urgency that appears to reflect not only the
uncertain markets but also a conviction that
timing is everything, and now is the time
for mining in the Yukon.
Rau discovery excites investors
Atac Resources’ Rau gold project is
finally getting attention after many months
of flying below investor radar.
Atac recently increased its 2010 exploration budget for Rau to C$15 million to
drill 15,000 meters, up an initial program
of C$12.5 million for 12,500 meters.
“Rau is the largest exploration play in
Yukon, and arguably in western Canada,
with the exception of the Selwyn Project,”
said Atac President Rob Carne. “The
Yukon is at the forefront of brand-new dissee YUKON EXPLORERS page 14
Regulatory road still has potholes
The changes have not guaranteed that
mining companies will overcome all regulatory obstacles easily.
Capstone Mining Corp., for example,
is headed toward completing its third full
year of copper, gold and silver production
and the prolific, high-grade Minto Mine
in central Yukon. The territory’s only
operating mine in recent years, Minto
encountered problems with unexpected
flooding due to uncommonly heavy rainfall last summer. Since then, mine operators have worked to resolve the flooding
within the restrictions of a water discharge permit that does not allow for
higher levels of particulates and metals.
Capstone is applying for a permit revision and anticipates being allowed to
remove the 160,000 cubic meters of
water by year’s end that currently prevents the mining of about 500,000 metric
tons of high-grade ore at the bottom of
the main open pit at Minto.
Western Copper Corp. is another mine
company that has encountered difficulties in Yukon’s permitting process. The
company recently was denied the final
authority needed to move toward start-up
of a 5,000 t/d open pit mine at its
Carmacks Copper Project in central
Yukon even though it was granted all of
its earlier permits, and independent studies indicate that the project poses little
risk to the environment. Western Copper
has appealed the decision and is currently focusing on its giant 1 billion-metric
ton Casino porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum-silver project to the northeast.
The junior hopes to apply for permits
under the YESAA process next spring. 14
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YUKON EXPLORERS
coveries and that is part of the reason that
the territory is on everybody’s radar
screen.”
Another reason the Yukon is drawing
industry attention is because very little
regional exploration is under way among
gold miners.
“The industry is in a bit of quiet desperation, and the Canadian industry is doomed
to recycling old showings,” he said.
Atac is one of a small group of exploration companies spawned by longtime
Yukon mining consultant Archer Cathro
Ltd., which got its start in the 1950s and
1960s working for oil and gas companies.
Bill Wengzynowski, president of Archer
Cathro, said his firm and independent
prospector Shawn Ryan are the only parties
who have carried out significant gold
prospecting in Yukon Territory in the past
decade.
The Rau Project is situated at the northern edge of the Tintina Gold Belt, a curved
swath of intense gold mineralization that
stretches from southwestern Alaska
through Yukon into northeastern British
Columbia. Huge gold deposits, including
33.5-million-ounce Donlin Creek and the
Fort Knox and Pogo gold mines lie within
the Tintina belt, but “the geology doesn’t
stop at the border,” Carne said.
Atac raised C$22 million in the markets
in early August, bringing to C$34 million
its total cash in the bank. “All of it is based
on the Rau discovery,” Carne said.
The company had five drills operating
in three camps on the 1,300-square-kilometer, or about 502-square-mile, property in
early August, with an objective of demonstrating that Rau is a multimillion-ounce
property.
In addition to work done at the Tiger
Zone where it discovered gold in 2008,
Atac has identified six new surface gold
zones by following up high values from
grid and widely spaced reconnaissance soil
sampling. The best zones are in a 500meter-wide belt, which lies 2-5 kilometers
along strike to the northwest of the Tiger
zone, in and adjacent to the northweststriking structural corridor. Anomalous soil
geochemical values stretch intermittently
for about 22 kilometers to the northwest
along the projected trace of the structural
corridor, which is marked by electromagnetic conductors. Surface rock samples collected from talus or recessively weathered
areas assayed between 1.0 grams per metric
ton gold and 18.5 g/t gold.
Atac planned an aggressive $12.5 million program of mapping, geochemical
A core drilling rig turns on the side of this sprawling mountain at the center of Western Copper Corp.’s Casino property in Yukon Territory.
The junior hopes to apply for operating permits in early 2011 in hopes of starting production at a 90,000-metric-ton-per-day open pit mine
in 2014 that would employ about 650 people and operate for at least 30 years.
sampling and diamond drilling involving at
least four drills is under way for the Tiger
zone area in 2010, as well as systematic
first pass exploration of the rest of the
property.
In late July, Atac reported another significant gold discovery at Rau, this time
near the eastern border of the property. The
junior reported gold mineralization associated with realgar and orpiment within its
Sten claim block grading from 1.92 to
12.15 g/t gold along with soil samples
grading up to 17.5 g/t gold.
Wengzynowski said he named the new
gold discovery Osiris, after the Egyptian
god of the underworld in honor of the
achievements of Underworld Resources
Inc., which was acquired earlier this year
by Kinross Gold Corp.
Atac quickly staked another 517 new
claims to complete coverage of a 150square-kilometer area of highly anomalous
gold and pathfinder elements in stream
sediments and mobilized a fifth drill to test
the Osiris target.
When asked if Atac hopes to one day
sell the Rau gold project to a major mining
company for development, Carne said the
junior is focused on finding the gold and
creating value for its shareholders, believing that the shareholders will decide what
happens to the project.
Golden Predator digs in
“We think the Yukon is the place to be
and three years in, we’ve got a lot of years
ahead of us,” said William M. Sheriff,
chairman and CEO of Golden Predator
Corp.
Sheriff said he believes Yukon Territory
is in the infancy of a major gold mining
boom.
“This is the next Nevada, and it’s the last
frontier for gold exploration in a First
World country. Placer miners are still getting easy gold. That’s not true for the rest of
the world,” he said. “I think over the next 30
years, there will be 100 gold discoveries
here. That’s not just conjecture, it’s reality.”
Golden Predator has attracted considerable attention in recent months with the
aggressive acquisition of a dozen or so
mining projects and additional acreage
across Yukon and northern British
Columbia, including 750,000 kilometers of
claims near the eastern border of Yukon.
Sheriff said the company aims to make
its mark as a gold producer focused on the
Yukon. Referring to Kinross Gold Corp.’s
recent acquisition of the 1-million-ounceplus White Gold deposit in west-central
Yukon, which was discovered by
Underworld Resources Inc. in 2008, he
said: “Our objective is not to sell to
Kinross. Our objective is to be Kinross.”
Golden Predator pulled out the stops
this year, spending $7 million to mount
exploration programs at six different projects in Yukon. Drill rigs are busy at the
Eureka, Clear Creek, Antimony, Brewery
Creek and Gold (Scheelite) Dome projects.
Drilling also is scheduled at the Cynthia
project, acquired in July from longtime
prospector Ron Berdahl.
To stretch the budget as far as it can go,
Sheriff has embraced the use of reverse circulation drilling in a big way, reasoning
that he can get more holes drilled faster
with an RC rig during the short, sub-arctic
summer that he could use core rigs for
every penetration.
“We average one hole a day with the RC
rigs, and if we can stay a month, we could
make 50 holes,” he said.
Golden Predator also purchased a fourplex in the community of Faro for the barsee YUKON EXPLORERS page 15
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YUKON EXPLORERS
gain basement price of C$69,000 for permanent housing of workers, rather than
spend money on temporary camp housing
at project sites.
Mike Burke, head of Mineral Services
for the Yukon Geological Survey, said the
junior’s enthusiasm stems in part from the
Yukon being relatively unexplored. At
Clear Creek, he said Sheriff got excited
when he learned that only 65 holes had
been drilled on the property.
“Sixty-five holes don’t mean anything,
especially when one-third of them bottoms
in 1 gram-per-metric-ton gold,” Sheriff told
Mining News. “A similar deposit in
Nevada would have thousands of holes.”
Selwyn prepares to drill
through the winter
To the east, Selwyn Resources Inc. is
grappling with the makings of a supergiant at the Selwyn Project, the world’s
largest undeveloped lead-zinc deposit.
“Very few systems in the world are on
the scale of 10s of kilometers,” said Jason
K. Dunning, vice president exploration at
Selwyn. “We’ve drilled it off at 40 kilometers now, and there’s probably 60 to 80 percent of the basin that’s still virtually unexplored.”
Dunning said no words can adequately
describe the property. “Everything is open
ended. Nothing has been closed off. It’s still
open to interpretation and that’s the beauty
of it. Even at depth, it’s open in all directions,” he said. “You may hit a fault, and
that’s a good thing. Because what you do is
step into the next fault panel. And we’ve
done this consistently over the years.”
The Selwyn property, formerly known
as Howard’s Pass, is very different from
anything else in its peer group, according to
Dunning.
“Even Red Dog and Century are small
compared to what this can be. In terms of
metal content, Red Dog is on par. Selwyn
has a lower grade than Red Dog but it’s a
much larger system because it’s not capped
like Red Dog,” he said.
Because Selwyn’s recent efforts to finalize a C$100 million, 50-50 joint venture
deal with China-based Yunnan Chihong
Investment Co., the company’s 2010 exploration budget has remained a moving target. The JV is required to produce a bankable feasibility study for the project.
“Since 2005, we’ve drilled almost
94,000 meters of core in 373 drill holes,
and we spent almost C51.5 million directly
on exploration,” Dunning said. “If the
budget holds true over the next couple of
years, we’ll probably spend another C$5065 million, depending on the level of devel-
A rock sample with a band of rich copper mineralization collected from Western Copper
Corp.’s giant porphyry Casino deposit in western Yukon Territory.
opment and depending on what we have to
do to meet that bankable feasibility.”
Two drills were spinning at Selwyn in
mid-August, and Dunning said he was
preparing to start a third drill.
“I’ve also been given approval to start
looking for three more (rigs) to start in
September,” he told Mining News. “That’s
going to change the equation on what our
2010 budget will be.”
Dunning said the junior plans to continue exploring the property all winter.
“We’re not going to stop. Our camp is
fully winterized, and we can drill all year
round. We’re set up to go all winter,” he
said. “The Don Creek produces water all
winter, so there’s no worry about freeze-up.
We’ll take a break for Christmas, maybe
have a caretaker crew to keep the roads and
airstrip open and the camp hot, so we can
return in January and ‘pitter-patter, get at
’er.’ ”
Dunning said people thought he was
“nuts” when he led a year-round exploration drilling program at the Wolverine
Project in southeastern Yukon before
Selwyn’s owners sold that project to another Chinese company several years ago.
IP survey IDs deep deposit at Minto
Capstone Mining Corp. undertook a
property-wide Titan-24 deep penetrating
induced polarization survey early in the
2010 season at the Minto copper-gold-silver mine. Minto is Yukon’s only producing
mine. The IP survey identified a number of
chargeability anomalies in areas untested
by previous drilling, including the Wildfire
discovery, one of the strongest and most
extensive IP anomalies yet identified at
Minto.
Capstone reported additional drilling
results Aug. 17 at Wildfire that found high-
grade copper-gold mineralization 76-110
meters deep at the deposit. The company
said follow-up drilling will continue with
two drills on Wildfire, and its 2010 exploration budget for Minto has been increased
by another C$1.5 million to allow for systematic drill testing of the prospective discovery and other targets generated from the
IP survey.
The addition brings the total exploration
commitment to C$7 million, the highest
annual exploration budget ever allocated
for the Minto Mine and a reflection of the
company’s belief that significant opportunities exist for continued increases of mineral resources and mineral reserves on the
property.
“The high-grade Wildfire copper-gold
discovery at Minto continues to spread,”
said Capstone President Stephen Quin.
“With an additional C$1.5 million in exploration funds, we are positioned to systematically drill test the entire anomaly, as well
as begin the evaluation of a number of
other prospective targets identified during
the recent geophysical survey,” he added.
Coffee yields gold-rich results
Though well into its second season of
exploring the prospective Coffee property
in west-central Yukon, Kaminak Gold
Corp. still isn’t quite sure how much
money it will pour into the project in 2010.
“It’s hard to predict exactly,” Kaminak
President and CEO Robert L. Carpenter
told Mining News during a tour of the
property Aug. 10. “We think we will drill
10,000 to 15,000 meters in 2010, and spend
about $8 million.”
The junior had completed 10,000
meters in 43 holes in early August and
based on assay results from the first 24
holes, was enjoying a 75 percent success
15
ratio.
Carpenter said this bodes well for the
success of the grassroots project.
“This isn’t something that’s been lying
around for 10, 20, or 30 years. There are
very few places in the world where you can
do that and we’re standing on one of them
right now,” he said.
This summer, Kaminak is focusing on
five of the 11 targets where it has reported
high-grade gold intercepts so far – Kona,
Americano, Latte, Supremo and Double
Double. On Aug. 11, Kaminak added to
another round to a barrage of exciting drill
results from the
Coffee Project this summer by reporting
assays from drill hole CFD-27 in “Double
Double” zone, which returned an intercept
of 6.3 g/t gold over 35 meters. The Double
Double zone is located 1 kilometer, or fiveeighths of a mile, east of the Latte zone and
an equal distance south of the Supremo
zone.
Like the other four zones, Double
Double was discovered through drilling
underneath a gold-in-soil anomaly, according to Carpenter.
“This summer we’ll get drill results
from five of 11 targets that we have,” he
said. “Keep in mind that we have 11 worldclass targets on the Coffee property. We
think at the end of this summer, if we’ve
got the right hits, and we can demonstrate a
number of discoveries of gold of different
widths over 10, or 15 kilometers of property. We hope that will show there is potential
for big deposits here.”
Kaminak hopes to demonstrate that the
Coffee property, which lies some 25-30
kilometers, or 16-19 miles, south of
Underworld Resources Inc.’s 1-millionounce-plus White Gold discovery that
Kinross Gold Corp. purchased earlier this
year, also hosts a substantial gold resource.
Or as the prospector who staked and
optioned both the White Gold and Coffee
claims, Shawn Ryan puts it: “It looks like
Coffee could be White Gold’s big brother.”
Carpenter already has visions of the
area becoming a major gold camp.
“Our objective here is to put together a
world-class asset, and by that we mean 3
million to 5 million ounces of gold,” said
Carpenter. “If we didn’t think that geologically we could sit 3 million ounces of
deposits here, then we wouldn’t be here. All
the footprints and checklists are here for
big deposits.”
To truly show the property’s potential,
Carpenter said the most promising targets
must be thoroughly tested. The work, so
far, has revealed that the Supremo zone,
where the discovery hole was drilled in
2009, is not one but six different structures,
while the largest zone actually is the
Americano zone.
see YUKON EXPLORERS page 16
16
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YUKON EXPLORERS
“We don’t know if Latte is the best. We
don’t know if Supremo is the best. …
We’ve drill tested all of them and a number
of those holes are at the lab right now,” he
added.
Porphyry giant yields silver resource
Another 25 kilometers, or 16 miles, to
the southeast is situated the Casino
Property, a sprawling giant porphyry
deposit previously estimated to contain 8
million ounces of gold, 4.4 billion pounds
of copper and 475 million pounds of
molybdenum in proven and probable
reserves.
Western Copper Corp. envisions Casino
becoming a 90,000 metric ton per day mine
that would pay off its projected $2.1 billion
in capital costs in 3.2 years. The junior
hopes to apply for operating permits in
early 2011 with the goal of beginning mine
production in 2014-15.
Western Copper is spending C$6 million on exploration at Casino this year,
bringing to 27,000 meters new drilling on
the property since 2008. The drilling has
extended the flat-lying shallow copper and
gold-enriched supergene zone to a 2.0-kilometer by 1.2 kilometer, or 1.24-mile by
.75-mile, area.
In June, Western Copper reported that
the average core length of the supergene
from current drilling is about 80 meters,
and the copper and gold-enriched zone
remains open to the north for further
expansion.
“We believe the discovery of significant
additional near-surface supergene mineralization has the potential to considerably
improve the project’s economics,” said
Western Copper Chairman and CEO Dale
Corman.
Of the 33 holes drilled and assayed during Phase 1 of 2010 exploration, 29 holes
returned significant mineralization.
Highlights include assay results from hole
CAS-073, which returned 114 meters of
0.97 percent copper-equivalent mineralization in the supergene zone and 110 meters
of copper, gold and moly mineralization for
a copper-equivalent grade of 0.69 percent
in the deeper hypogene zone.
“We’re just finishing up the second
phase of drilling,” said Jack McClintock,
consulting geologist and former global
exploration manager with BHP Billiton.
Kaminak Gold Corp. President and CEO Rob Carpenter said different rock types found at
Coffee gold property in west-central Yukon suggest the property could host a large system
of gold mineralization.
“We’ve re-logged 60 percent (90,000
meters) of the old core and as well as evaluated all of the new assays and developed a
new geological model.
As a result, Western Copper believes
Casino is geologically simpler than previously thought and has a lower stripping
ratio.
“Most of the stuff that’s going to come
off the hill is going to go straight into the
mill with very little waste,” Corman said.
“That’s what gives this deposit an advantage over others. It has a very, very low
stripping ratio.
With the latest drilling, the company
also determined that Casino also hosts a
significant silver resource.
“We did the prefeasibility study without
silver, Corman said. “This time, it’s in the
model at a grade of 1.5-2.0 g/t silver, resulting in about 2 million ounces of silver pro-
duction per year.
He said the silver output should pay for
transportation of concentrates shipped
from the proposed mine.
Drills, IP survey target Freegold
Mountain’s secrets
At least three other juniors have mounted multimillion-dollar 2010 gold exploration campaigns in Yukon, including
Northern Tiger, Victoria Gold Corp and
Northern Freegold Corp.
Northern Freegold had spent $3.5 million on exploration at its huge 200-squarekilometer, or 77-square-mile, Freegold
Mountain Project by mid-August and
anticipated additional spending for a second phase of its 2010 program.
“We’re doing RC drilling in the Nucleus
zone and diamond drilling in the
Revenue zone and we’re making a deci-
•
sion about the second phase as we speak,”
Northern Freegold Chairman and chief
operating officer Bill Harris told Mining
News Aug. 14.
“When you have hundreds and hundreds of targets and seven or eight deposits,
the question is which one are you going to
focus on next?”
Revenue, a potentially 24-kilometerlong copper-gold anomaly, is attracting a
lot of the junior’s attention this summer,
while Freegold Mountain’s other six or
more known gold deposits are getting additional prospecting, soil sampling and geophysics but no drilling this year. As of Aug.
10, Northern Freegold had drilled about
4,400 meters of the 5,000 meters planned at
Revenue in the first phase and about 3,000
meters of the 4,500 meters planned at
Nucleus.
The Nucleus zone, a 1.5-kilometer-by1.2 kilometer, or 1-mile-by-0.75-mile, gold
deposit with a 1-million-ounce inferred
resource calculated in 2009 appears to be
perched on the side of the much larger
Revenue deposit.
But Harris said the junior has much
more to learn about the two deposits.
“Most of the drilling at Nucleus was
done with 50-meter step-outs. We feel
we’ve got that figured out pretty well,”
Harris said. “We’re now doing 200-meter
step-outs.”
Because of its larger size, the junior
began drilling at the Revenue zone with
200-meter step-outs, in fences of holes
along a 3-kilomenter, or 2-mile, length.
“We’re not sure how these deposits connect. That’s what we are trying to figure out
this year,” he said.
Northern Freegold project geologist
Debbie James said the Revenue zone is
shaping up to be a significant orebody with
mineralization dipping to depths of 200250 meters.
The junior is hoping that results of a
Titan 24 deep-imaging IP survey this season will detect any deeper mineralization
down to 750 meters.
“If we hit something deep, we will have
something pretty significant,” James
added.
When asked how Freegold Mountain’s
potential gold resource compares with the
White Gold and Coffee properties to the
northwest where recent gold discoveries
have been reported, Harris said the two
exploration plays may prove to be siblings,
but Freegold Mountain could be the
“granddaddy of them all.” Alaska Earth Sciences
Comprehensive Mineral and
Geothermal Exploration Services
ǜComprehensive geologic
exploration services
ǜAssessing coal resources
ǜLogistics Coordination
ǜRemote Site Management
ǜGeothermal resource
exploration and development
ǜGeographic Information (GIS)
analysis and support
ǜLand Status records,
permitting and claim staking
11401 Olive Lane
Anchorage, Alaska 99515
907-522-4664
http://www.aes.alaska.com
PETROLEUM NEWS
•
17
NORTH OF 60 MINING
A L A S K A
Tower Hill unlikely to clone Fort Knox
Junior aims to investigate larger operation, heap leach-only scenario as it advances multimillion-ounce Livengood gold deposit
SHANE LASLEY
By SHANE LASLEY
Mining News
H
aving completed a preliminary economic assessment for the Livengood project in early August,
International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. has shifted its focus
toward bringing the multimillion-ounce gold property into
production.
“Our operational team is making excellent progress in
advancing the project down the development and permitting path, a process which we will continue to accelerate,”
Tower Hill President and CEO Jeff Pontius told Mining
News Aug. 17.
The PEA envisions a heap leach pad and mill similar in
scale to those at Kinross Gold Corp.’s Fort Knox Mine
about 60 miles, or 100 kilometers, southeast. Processing
81,000 metric tons of ore per day Livengood would produce an average of 504,000 ounces of gold annually over
a 21-year mine life.
Though the PEA demonstrates
that a clone of the Fort Knox mill
and heap leach operation at
Livengood would be economic,
Tower Hill is unlikely to pursue that
development scenario. A final report
on the PEA, due to be released by
mid-September, will outline two
alternatives more apt to resemble the
project’s final design.
JEFF PONTIUS
“In the final report, there will be
a couple of alternatives that will be looked at in some
detail – one of going initially with a heap leach for six or
seven years so we can pay our way to build the mill, (and)
the other of doubling the capacity of the mill so we can
mine it out in a more reasonable time-period,” Pontius
said.
Fort Knox clone
SHANE LASLEY
According to the PEA, building a Fort Knox-sized
mine at Livengood would cost around US$1.385 billion,
with an additional US$450 million in life-of-mine sustaining capital costs. The figures used in the assessment
include a 25 percent contingency on capital costs, a number that should decrease as the mine plan becomes more
certain.
“The base-case we put in there was basically cloning
the current Fort Knox operation and sticking it at
Livengood. One of the drawbacks that we saw is that
Livengood is considerably bigger than Fort Knox, and it
The Walter Creek Valley Heap Leach and other facilities at Kinross Gold Corp.’s Fort Knox Mine provided the conceptual
design that International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. used in a preliminary economic assessment of the Livengood gold project
about 60 miles, or 100 kilometers, to the northwest.
“The positive results from this economic assessment
will form the conceptual foundation of the Livengood
project design, which is projected to consist of a large
open-pit mine supplying ore to both a large mill using
gravity and flotation concentration and a heap leach pad
with associated gold recovery circuit,” said Tower Hill
Chief Operating Officer Carl Brechtel. “The authors of
this most recent PEA will continue on as key external
members of the company’s owner team, providing continuity in the transition to the prefeasibility study. The
prefeasibility study will address a number of optimization
and enhancement opportunities to continue to improve and
grow the project.”
Two alternatives
The two optimization and enhancement options under
consideration are increasing the mine rate and beginning
with a heap leach-only operation for the
first few years.
With capital costs at about half that of
constructing a combined mill-heap leach
operation, an initial heap leach-only option
is an attractive alternative if Tower Hill
puts Livengood into operation on its own.
“That is a real option for us because
bringing the heap on would lower the initial (capital expenditure), and it allows
ITH to look at a way financially it can take
the project forward,” Pontius told Mining
News.
“If ITH is building this project, we are
going to want to run the heap gangbusters
for a while to actually get some good
cash,” he added.
The Money Knob deposit at Livengood
contains some 300 million metric tons of
heap-leachable oxidized mineralization, a
Looking at the Livengood project from the north, the prominent point, aptly
named Money Knob, is located roughly at the center of the 13.3 million-ounce number the company expects to increase
gold deposit outlined to date by International Tower Hill Mines Ltd.
as drilling results increase the deposit size
to the west.
had such a long mine-life, it didn’t produce as good finan“We have expanded the two best heap leach units,
cial results as it could have if (we) increased mill produc- which are the Cambrian and Upper Sedimentary, to the
tion to compress that 21-year life,” Pontius explained.
point where they could support a very large mine for about
Though much can be done to improve the profitability seven years at a throughput of 100,000 tons a day,” Pontius
of the project, the PEA did demonstrate positive econom- explained.
ics. At US$950 per ounce gold, the conceptual project has
With cash coming in the company could later opt to
a pre-tax net present value (at a 5 percent discount) of build a mill to mine the deeper unoxidized ore.
US$813 million and an internal rate of return of 15.4 perThe other option under consideration is ratcheting up
cent. The study also shows the deposit has a considerable the size of the operation.
leverage to gold prices, with a pre-tax NPV (5 percent) of
“It’s a very large deposit with over 10 million recoverUS$2.3 billion and an IRR of 32.5 percent at US$1,200 able ounces – half a million ounces a year of production,
per ounce gold.
which has an opportunity to increase as we enlarge the
operation to take advantage of economies of scale,”
Pontius said.
Livengood is particularly suited for a larger-scale operation. Not only is it an enormous ore-body, it has a low
ore-to-strip ratio of 1-to-1.07 and large mineralized units.
“The strip ratio is approximately 1-to-1 in the deposit
and affords us a great opportunity to scale this operation
up and compress the mine-life, which should improve the
overall economics of the project,” Pontius said.
A larger operation comes with a larger price tag. If the
scaled-up option is pursued, it is likely that a major company would join Tower Hill to build the mine.
“Of course we will be continuing on (with) putting both
scenarios out there; one where we bring a heap leach on
early and get it going and start to make cash out of the
project so we can finance the mill construction, and the
other one is to do it all at once – bring the mill, the heap
leach push it forward on a very large-scale basis like a big
company would do, that isn’t capital constrained,” the
Tower Hill CEO explained.
Prefeasibility under way
Working out the pros and cons of the various scenarios
will be part of the prefeasibility study currently underway.
“We have good infrastructure, we are in a very favorable jurisdiction, we have strong local support for this
project, and we are moving it forward very quickly into the
prefeasibility phase,” Pontius said.
As engineers hammer out the mine plans, scientists are
on the ground collecting the hydrological, environmental
and other data needed to permit the project.
With the addition of personnel conducting the baseline
studies, Pontius said the population of the Livengood
camp swelled to more than 80 people this summer.
In addition to the field programs, Tower Hill will soon
award a contract for more in-depth phase-2 metallurgical
work.
Denser, deeper drilling
The infill portion of this summer’s 45,000-meter drill
campaign is a key component of the Livengood prefeasibility study. The primary goals of the two core rigs and one
reverse circulation drill engaged in the infill program is to
convert the bulk of the resources included in the mine-plan
to measured and indicated categories, better define the
higher-grade areas of the deposit and extend the mineralization at depth.
Tower Hill believes this summer’s infill drill campaign
will provide enough density to upgrade the bulk of the
see LIVENGOOD page 21
Companies involved in Alaska and
northwestern Canada’s mining industry
D I R E C T O R Y
The Red Dog mine in northwest Alaska.
Mining Companies
Fairbanks Gold Mining/Fort Knox Gold Mine
Fairbanks, AK 99707
Contact: Lorna Shaw, community affairs director
Phone: (907) 488-4653 • Fax: (907) 490-2250
Email: [email protected] • Web site: www.kinross.com
Located 25 miles northeast of Fairbanks, Fort Knox is
Alaska’s largest operating gold mine, producing
340,000 ounces of gold in 2004.
Kiska Metals
Suite 1350, 650 West Georgia St.
Vancouver, BC V6B 4N9 Canada
Contact: Jason Weber
Phone: (604) 669-6660
Fax: (604) 669-0898
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.kiskametals.com
Gold and copper projects in Alaska, Yukon, BC,
Australia and Mexico. Preferred partner of senior
mining firms.
Usibelli Coal Mine
Fairbanks, AK 99701
Contact: Bill Brophy, vp cust. relations
Phone: (907) 452-2625 • Fax: (907) 451-6543
Email: [email protected] • Web site: www.usibelli.com
Other Office
P. O. Box 1000 • Healy, AK 99743
Phone: (907) 683-2226
Usibelli Coal Mine is headquartered in Healy, Alaska
and has 200 million tons of proven coal reserves.
Usibelli produced one million tons of sub-bituminous
coal this year.
Service, Supply & Equipment
3M Alaska
11151 Calaska Circle
Anchorage, AK 99515
Contact: Paul Sander, manager
Phone: (907) 522-5200 • Fax: (907) 522-1645
Website: www.3m.com
Serving Alaska for over 34 years, 3M Alaska offers total
solutions from the wellhead to the retail pump with a
broad range of products and services – designed to
improve safety, productivity and profitability.
Air Liquide
Anchorage, AK 99518
Contact: Brian Benson
Phone: (907) 273-9762 • Fax: (907) 561-8364
Air Liquide sells, rents, and is the warranty station for
Lincoln, Miller, Milwaukee, Victor and most other welding equipment and tool manufacturers.
Alaska Analytical Laboratory
1956 Richardson Highway
North Pole, AK 99705
Phone: (907) 488-1266 • Fax: (907) 488-077
E-mail: [email protected]
Environmental analytical soil testing for GRO, DRO,
RRO, and UTEX. Field screening and phase 1 and 2
site assessments also available.
Alaska Earth Sciences
Anchorage, AK 99515
Contact: Bill Ellis and Rob Retherford, owners
Phone: (907) 522-4664 • Fax: (907) 349-3557
A full service exploration group that applies earth sciences for the mining and petroleum industries providing prospect generation, evaluation and valuation,
exploration concepts, project management, geographic
information systems and data management. We also
provide camp support and logistics, geologic, geochemical and geophysical surveys.
Alaska Frontier Constructors
P.O. Box 224889
Contact: John Ellsworth, President
Phone: (907) 562-5303 • Fax: (907) 562-5309
Alaskan heavy civil construction company specializing in
Arctic and remote site development with the experience, equipment and personnel to safely and efficiently
complete your project.
Alaska Interstate Construction
601 W. 5th Avenue, Suite 400
Anchorage, AK 99501
Contact: David Gonzalez
Phone: (907) 562-2792 • Fax: (907) 562-4179
Web site: www.aicllc.com
AIC provides cost-effective solutions to resource
development industries. We provide innovative ideas
to meet each requirement through the provision of
best-in-class people and equipment coupled with
exceptional performance.
Alaska Steel Co.
1200 W. Dowling
Anchorage, AK 99518
Contact: Joe Pavlas, outside sales manager
Phone: (907) 561-1188
Toll free: (800) 770-0969 (AK only)
Fax: (907) 561-2935
Fairbanks Office:
2800 South Cushman
Contact: Dan Socha, branch mgr.
Phone: (907) 456-2719 • Fax: (907) 451-0449
Kenai Office:
205 Trading Bay Rd.
Contact: Will Bolz, branch mgr.
Phone: (907) 283-3880 • Fax: (907) 283-3759
Rebar Division
1200 W. Dowling
Anchorage, AK 99518
Contact: Mike Galyon, rebar mgr.
Phone: (907) 561-1188 • Fax: (907) 562-7518
Full-line steel, aluminum, and rebar distributor.
Complete processing capabilities, statewide service.
Specializing in low temperature steel and wear plate.
Alaska Telecom
6623 Brayton Dr.
Anchorage, AK 99507
Contact: Kevin Gray or Martin Stewart
Phone: (907) 344-1223
Fax: (907) 344-1612
E-mail: [email protected] or
[email protected]
Website: www.alaskatelecom.com
Providing telecommunications support to oil explo-
see next page
PETROLEUM NEWS
•
ration and production companies and contractors.
Satellite communications, voice, data, microwave,
VHF/UHF radio, engineering and installation.
AmerCable Inc.
350 Bailey Road
El Dorado, Arkansas 71730
Contact: Russ Van Wyck, senior sales rep/Alaska
Phone: (713) 305-3315
Fax: (870) 862-8659
Web site: www.amercable.com
AmerCable’s Tiger ©Brand mining cables are
designed for Alaska’s harshest operating environments. Surface/open pit or underground, we have a
mining cable productivity solution for you.
Arctic Foundations
Contact: Ed Yarmak
Phone: (907) 562-2741 • Fax: (907) 562-0153
Website: www.arcticfoundations.com
Soil stabilization – frozen barrier and frozen core dams
to control hazardous waste and water movement.
Foundations – maintain permafrost for durable high
capacity foundations.
Austin Powder Company
P.O. Box 8236
Ketchikan, AK 99901
Contact: Tony Barajas, alaska manager
Phone: (907) 225-8236 • Fax: (907) 225-8237
Web site: www.austinpowder.com
In business since 1833, Austin Powder provides
statewide prepackaged and onsite manufactured
explosives and drilling supplies with a commitment
to safety and unmatched customer service.
Calista Corp.
301 Calista Court, Suite A
Anchorage, AK 99518
Phone: (907) 279-5516 • Fax: (907) 272-5060
Web site: www.calistacorp.com
Chiulista Services Inc.
6613 Brayton Dr., Ste. C
Contact: Joe Obrochta, president
Contact: Monique Henriksen, VP
Phone: (907) 278-2208 Fax: (907) 677-7261
The 100 percent Alaska Native owned and operated
catering company at the Donlin Creek Prospect and
with North Slope experience, catering and housekeeping to your tastes, not ours; providing operations and camp maintenance.
Construction Machinery
5400 Homer Dr.
Anchorage, AK 99518
Contact: Ron Allen, Sales Manager
Phone: (907) 563-3822 • Fax: (907) 563-1381
Email: [email protected] • Web site: www.cmiak.com
Other Offices:
Fairbanks office
Phone: 907-455-9600 • Fax: 907-455-9700
Juneau office
Phone: 907-780-4030 • Fax: 907-780-4800
Ketchican office
Phone: 907-247-2228 • Fax: 907-247-2228
Wasilla Office
Phone: 907-376-7991 • Fax: 907-376-7971
Fairweather, LLC
9525 King St.
Anchorage, AK 99515
Contact: Jenna Kroll, medical administration
Phone: 907 346-3247
Fax: 907 349-1920
Website: www.fariweather.com
Fairweather, LLC is an Alaska-based company providing a multifaceted program of support services for
the mining industry specializing in paramedic and
physician assistant staffed remote medical services,
weather forecasting, airport equipment, bear guards
and expediting.
GCI Industrial Telecom
Anchorage:
800 East Dimond Boulevard, Suite 3-565
Anchorage, AK 99515
Phone: (907) 868-0400
Fax: (907) 868-9528
Toll free: (877) 411-1484
Web site: www.GCI-IndustrialTelecom.com
Rick Hansen, Director
[email protected]
Mark Johnson, Account Manager
[email protected]
Deadhorse:
Aurora Hotel #205
Deadhorse, Alaska 99734
Phone: (907) 771-1090
NORTH OF 60 MINING
Advertiser Index
3M Alaska. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Air Liquide
Alaska Analytical Laboratory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Alaska Dreams
Alaska Earth Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Alaska Frontier Constructors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Alaska Interstate Construction (AIC). . . . . . . . . . . 23
Alaska Steel Co.
Alaska Telecom
AmerCable Inc.
Arctic Foundations
Austin Powder Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Calista Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chiulista Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Construction Machinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Fairbanks Gold Mining/Fort Knox Gold Mine . . . 13
Fairweather LLC
GCI Industrial Telecom
Gold Canyon Mining. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Jackovich Industrial & Construction Supply. . . . . 14
Judy Patrick Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Kiska Metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Last Frontier Air Ventures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Lynden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
MRO Sales
Nature Conservancy, The
Northern Air Cargo
Oxford Assaying & Refining Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Pacific Rim Geological Consulting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
PND Engineers Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Salt+Light Creative
Taiga Ventures/PacWest Drilling Supply . . . . . . . 22
URS Corp.
Usibelli Coal Mine
Mike Stanford, Senior Manager North Slope
[email protected]
Houston:
8588 Katy Freeway, Suite 245
Houston, Texas 77024
Phone: (713) 589-4456
Hillary McIntosh, Account Representative
[email protected]
Provides innovative solutions to the most complex
communication issues facing industrial
clientele. We deliver competitive services, reputable
expertise and safely operate under the
most severe working conditions for the oil, gas
and natural resource industries. GCI-your best
choice for full life cycle, expert, proven, industrial
communications.
Gold Canyon Mining
1075 S. Idaho Road, Ste. 104
Apache Junction, AZ 85119
Contact: David Fortner
Phone: (480) 302-4790
Fax: (480) 671-5368
Website: www.gcmining.com
Specializing in mine site development, contract mining, and final mine closure. With a solid reputation
for proficiency, productivity and safety, ready to take
on both your large and small projects.
Jackovich Industrial & Construction Supply
Fairbanks, AK 99707
Contact: Buz Jackovich
Phone: (907) 456-4414 • Fax: (907) 452-4846
Anchorage office
Phone: (907) 277-1406 • Fax: (907) 258-1700
24- hour emergency service. With 30 years of experience, we’re experts on arctic conditions and extreme
weather.
Judy Patrick Photography
Anchorage, AK 99501
Contact: Judy Patrick
Phone: (907) 258-4704 • Fax: (907) 258-4706
Website: JudyPatrickPhotography.com
Creative images for the resource development industry.
Last Frontier Air Ventures
39901 N. Glenn Hwy.
Sutton, AK 99674
Contact: Dave King, owner
Phone: (907) 745-5701
Fax: (907) 745-5711
Anchorage Base (907) 272-8300
Web site: www.LFAV.com
Helicopter support statewide for mineral exploration,
survey research and development, slung cargo,
19
video/film projects, telecom support, tours, crew
transport, heli skiing. Short and long term contracts.
Lynden
Alaska Marine Lines • Alaska Railbelt Marine
Alaska West Express • Lynden Air Cargo
Lynden Air Freight • Lynden International
Lynden Logistics • Lynden Transport
Anchorage, AK 99502
Contact: Jeanine St. John
Phone: (907) 245-1544 • Fax: (907) 245-1744
The combined scope of the Lynden companies includes
truckload and less-than-truckload highway connections,
scheduled barges, intermodal bulk chemical hauls,
scheduled and chartered air freighters, domestic and
international air forwarding and international sea forwarding services.
MRO Sales
Anchorage, AK 99518
Contact: Don Powell
Phone: (907) 248-8808 • Fax: (907) 248-8878
Website: www.mrosalesinc.com
MRO Sales offers products and services that can help
solve the time problem on hard to find items.
Northern Air Cargo
3900 W. International Airport Rd.
Anchorage, AK 99502
Contact: Mark Liland, acct. mgr. Anch./Prudhoe Bay
Phone: (907) 249-5149 • Fax: (907) 249-5194
Email: [email protected] • Website: www.nac.aero
Serving the aviation needs of rural Alaska for almost
50 years, NAC is the states largest all cargo carrier
moving nearly 100 million pounds of cargo on scheduled flights to 17 of Alaska’s busiest airports. NAC’s
fleet of DC-6, B-727, and ATR-42 aircraft are available
for charters to remote sites and flag stops to 44 additional communities.
Oxford Assaying & Refining Corp.
3406 Arctic Blvd
Anchorage, AK 99503
Contact: Gene Pool, manager
Phone: (907) 561-5237
Fax: (907) 563-8547
We have offered full service assaying & refining service to Alaska’s gold miners for over 28 years. We also
buy sell and trade gold silver & platinum.
Pacific Rim Geological Consulting
Fairbanks, AK 99708
Contact: Thomas Bundtzen, president
Phone: (907) 458-8951
Fax: (907) 458-8511
Geologic mapping, metallic minerals exploration and
industrial minerals analysis or assessment.
PND Engineers Inc.
1506 W. 36th Ave.
Anchorage, AK 99503
Phone: (907) 561-1011
Fax: (907) 563-4220
Website: www.pndengineers.com
Full-service engineering firm providing civil, structural, and geotechnical engineering, including mining
support, resource development, permitting, marine
and coastal engineering, transportation engineering,
hydrology, site remediation, and project management.
Taiga Ventures
2700 S. Cushman
Fairbanks, AK 99701
Mike Tolbert - president
Phone: 907-452-6631 • Fax: 907-451-8632
Other offices:
Airport Business Park
2000 W. International Airport Rd, #D-2
Anchorage, AK 99502
Phone: 907-245-3123
Web site: www.taigaventures.com
Remote site logistics firm specializing in turnkey
portable shelter camps – all seasons.
URS Corp.
560 E. 34th St., Suite 100
Anchorage, AK 99503
Contact: Jon Isaacs, Alaska vice president
Phone: (907) 562-3366 • Fax: (907) 562-1297
Website: www.urscorp.com
URS Corporation provides comprehensive integrated
services to the petroleum industry, including NEPA permitting support and regulatory compliance, engineering design and construction management, field studies,
environmental monitoring and contaminated site
cleanup.
20
NORTH OF 60 MINING
PETROLEUM NEWS
•
A L A S K A
Constantine expands VMS, gears up for gold
As drills enlarge Palmer resource in Southeast Alaska, explorer seeks new targets with geophysics, plans to test gold targets next
CONSTANTINE METAL RESOURCES LTD.
By SHANE LASLEY
Mining News
C
onstantine Metal Resources Ltd.’s
7,500-meter drill program continues
to unravel the complex geology of Glacier
Creek Prospect at the Palmer copper-zincgold-silver project in Southeast Alaska.
The South Wall and RW zones at
Glacier Creek has been the focus of
Constantine’s drilling since the junior
began exploring Palmer in 2006. With 32
holes drilled into the prospect through
2009, the junior released an initial inferred
resource of 4.12 million metric tons grading 2.01 percent copper, 4.79 percent zinc,
0.30 grams per metric ton gold and 31 g/t
silver (using a net smelter return cut-off of
US$75/t).
“Palmer represents an early-stage discovery where Constantine has been able to
rapidly define a significant resource with
relatively few drill holes. The deposit is
open in most directions, with considerable
potential for expansion,” said Constantine
President and CEO Garfield MacVeigh.
While two drills explore multiple strata
of VMS mineralization at RW and South
Wall, geophysical surveys are out front
investigating the larger potential of the
mineral-rich, mountainous terrain.
“This year we have added a component
of geophysics to start keying up other
prospects for drilling either later this year
or next year,” Constantine Vice President of
Exploration Darwin Green told Mining
News.
Once the exploration season winds
down at Palmer, the explorer plans to spend
some time investigating its gold properties
in Ontario and British Columbia.
“Because of the major discovery made
at Palmer, Croesus and our other gold projects haven’t received the attention they
deserved over the past two years. But now
with gold (prices) up over US$1,200 an
ounce, we are gearing up to get more
aggressive on these projects,” Green
explained.
Expanding Glacier Creek
Constantine rolled out assay results for
the first three drill holes drilled into the of
the 2010 drill program in early August.
South Wall, which consists of three
nearly vertical stacked zones of VMS
mineralization, was the target of hole
CMR10-34. Hole 34 intersected 10.4
percent zinc, 0.42 percent lead, 0.87 g/t
gold and 81.6 g/t silver. This intersection
extends Zone 1 mineralization 70 meters
up-dip of hole CMR08-17 and expands
the total vertical extent of South Wall mineralization to 430 meters.
At the upper extent of South Wall a
fault cuts and folds the three layers at
which point they lay into a more horizontal orientation. The upper layer, South
Wall Zone 1, is related to the Main Zone
lying immediately to the southeast, while
Zone 2 and Zone 3 are of the same age
strata as the RW Zone to the northwest.
Two of the initial holes of this year’s
drill program, CMR10-33 and CMR1035, focused on expanding the RW Zone
towards similar mineralization drilled by
previous explorers 300 meters to the
northwest of hole CMR07-07.
Hole 7, drilled at RW in 2007, cut 14
percent zinc, 0.4 g/t gold, 50.9 g/t silver.
Hole 35, collared about 45 meters
A drill cuts through snowpack into the RW Zone at Constantine Metal Resources’ Palmer property in Southeast Alaska. CMR 10-35 cut 7.1
meters averaging 2.10 percent copper, 1.52 percent zinc, 0.18 grams per metric ton gold and 16.8 g/t silver.
along strike to the west-northwest of hole
7, cut 7.1 meters averaging 2.10 percent
copper, 1.52 percent zinc, 0.18 grams per
metric ton gold and 16.8 g/t silver.
Hole 33, about 60 meters north of hole
7, did not find massive sulfides but
instead broad zones of footwall stringer
mineralization containing anomalous zinc
was intersected. Similar stringers were
cut below the VMS in hole 35 and is helping vector the drilling toward the RW
Zone.
By mid-August Constantine had completed nine holes at Palmer and the drills
were still turning. In addition to expanding five previously intersected zones of
mineralization, the company is targeting a
deep zone believed to exist at RW, but has
never been drilled.
“There are five separate zones included in the resource, all of which are open
for expansion. Drilling has primarily
focused on expanding theses zones along
strike and to depth. We believe there
exists significant potential to find a deeper zone on the upright fold limb below the
RW horizon that equates with South Wall
Zone I, and are also trying to direct some
of our exploration effort to gain a better
understanding of this setting which has
seen virtually no drilling to date,” Green
said.
Geophysics seeks new targets
The geophysical work at Palmer this
year includes 40 line-kilometers of surfacebased electromagnetic surveys covering
areas immediately along trend from the
currently defined deposit and several other
well-mineralized prospects known to occur
on the property.
Numerous showings and prospects on
the Palmer property occur along two mineralized trends over a combined strike
length of at least nine miles, or 14.5 kilometers.
“The preliminary data from that is looksee CONSTANTINE page 21
•
21
NORTH OF 60 MINING
CONSTANTINE
ing really exciting, and in fact we are targeting one of those areas right now with
drilling,” Green said. “The target is about
500 meters north of the Little Jarvis surface
showing where chip samples by Kennecott
in the mid-1990s returned 4.6 meters grading 13 percent zinc, 7 percent copper and 7
oz/ton silver. Little Jarvis is on the opposite
side of the mountain, about 1 kilometer,
west of our South Wall drilling.”
Mount Henry Clay, the source of enormous high-grade massive and semi-massive sulfide boulders that occur near the
limits of a stranded glacier, is another of the
prospective areas where Constantine conducted a geophysical survey this summer.
“We have got some interesting data that
has come out of that as well,” Green said.
The boulders, discovered in 1983 at the
toe of a small ice sheet near Mount Henry
Clay, contain as much as 33 percent zinc
and 2.5 percent copper.
Twenty-six samples of various boulders
collected by the U.S. Bureau of Mines
returned an average grade of 19.3 percent
zinc, 1 percent copper, 0.4 percent lead,
38.2 g/t silver, 0.22 g/t gold, and 20.6 percent barium. Although the source of the
boulders has not been determined, the area
remains attractive for discovery.
Bear
Creek
Mining,
Granges
Exploration Inc. and Rubicon Minerals
Corp. drilled a combined 13 holes seeking
the source of the boulders, but none of the
programs were successful in discovering
where the rich massive sulfide originated.
“Only preliminary data has been
received; however, we are encouraged by
the response we are seeing,” the exploration
vice president said. “The surveying was
part of our strategy of trying to advance
other prospect areas on the property for
drilling either late 2010 or 2011. With
numerous prospects dotted along a 15-kilometer, or 9.3-mile, or so strike length, we
think there is very good potential to discover multiple deposits on the property.
Certainly the tenor and the size of the boulders that are scattered around the toe of the
small perched MHC ice sheet warrant further investigation.”
High-grade Ontario gold
When the exploration season at Palmer
comes to a close, Constantine will resume
investigation of its Munro-Croesus gold
property, a 1,028-acre land package that
covers the legendary Croesus gold mine
located 75 kilometers, or 47 miles, east of
Timmins, Ontario.
For about four years, starting in 1915,
miners extracted extremely high-grade
gold from Croesus, the richest of which
was shipped directly to the Royal Canadian
Mint for processing. In 1919 the Ontario
Bureau of Mines reported that “765 pounds
of ore taken from a portion of the shaft
yielded $47,000 worth of gold.” At the
US$20.67 per troy ounce gold price of the
day this would have represented a grade of
203,771 g/t gold.
About 1,000 pounds per week of the
high-grade ore was shipped to the mint
from 1915 until the early part of 1918 when
the miners lost the bonanza ore at a fault.
Ore not shipped directly to the mint was
milled onsite. While the main production
ended when the vein was lost, intermittent
mining continued until 1936. These small
operations recovered additional gold from
pillars, fault material and surface dumps.
The Ontario Department of Mines
reports that the ore milled at Croesus produced 14,854 ounces gold from 5,333 short
tons, for an average grade of 2.78 oz gold
per short ton, or 95.3 grams per metric ton.
This does not include the high-grade gold
ore shipped directly to the Royal Canadian
Palmer Project – Schematic Diagram of
F ld d Massive
Folded
M
i Sulfide
S lfid Horizons
H i
RW and
d MAIN
ZONES
Open to
Expansion
SOUTHWALL
ZONES
Open to
Expansion
Mint for processing.
Five samples of Croesus ore purchased
by the Ontario Bureau of Mines for exhibition purposes and now in possession of the
Royal Ontario Museum weigh 85 pounds
collectively and contain 480.7 ounces, or
387,727 g/t gold.
Recent drilling by Constantine has identified gold-bearing veins on the offset side
of the fault and new vein systems at depth
below the historic mine workings that share
the same alteration, and stratigraphic and
structural setting as the mined Croesus
vein.
“Garfield has a long family history with
the Croesus and has probably done some of
the best volcanic stratigraphy mapping of
any area in the Abitibi to resolve the structural and stratigraphic setting of the
Croesus high-grade, so our target is really
well set up.”
The Abitibi gold belt, which has produced some 170 million metric tons of gold
since 1901, is one of the most productive
greenstone hosted gold districts in the
world.
With very few holes ever penetrating
deeper than 100 meters on the MunroCroesus property, the depth potential of the
system remains virtually untested.
Constantine said these regions will be the
focus of future drilling.
“Croesus is teed up for a drill program
either late 2010 or early 2011 to specifically locate some more of the spectacular
high-grade gold,” Green said.
New B.C. gold prospect
In May Constantine also picked up
Trapper Lake, an early-stage gold prospect
in the Atlin Mining District of northwestern
British Columbia.
Work at Trapper Lake (previously
known as the Inlaw property) in the early
1980s by Chevron Minerals of Canada,
outlined a large-scale gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly with initial reconnaissance soil sampling followed by 700 gridcontrolled soil samples at the 9,280-acre
land package. Within the more than 1,000meter-long anomaly, 13 individual soil
samples yielded gold values greater than 1
g/t gold and two sites yielded values greater
than 8 g/t gold. A soil sample program carried out in 2008 by Richfield Ventures
Corp. validated the earlier findings.
MacVeigh said, “The Trapper Lake
property represents an exceptional earlystage gold exploration opportunity. It is rare
to find a project with such a large and hightenor geochemical soil anomaly lacking
any prior drilling. Recent major gold discoveries in the Yukon, made following up
gold-in-soil anomalies, highlight the opportunity.”
Green told Mining News in mid-August
that he is gearing up to visit the gold
LIVENGOOD
10.9-million-ounce indicated and 2.4million-ounce inferred gold resource.
The grades are also holding up to the
density drilling and may increase slightly when a new resource is calculated.
Many of the holes drilled into Money
Knob have bottomed out in mineralization, indicating that the deposit has room
to grow at depth. Two holes drilled into
the Sunshine zone this summer highlight
this potential. At a depth of 353 meters,
hole MK- RC-0373 cut 49 meters grading 1.9 of gold per metric ton. From 363
meters hole MK-RC-0376 drilled 15
meters averaging 1.2 g/t gold.
Seeking gold-poor regions of the
property suitable for building the heap
leach pad, mill and other facilities is
another facet of the drill program that
will provide information the engineers
need as they complete the feasibility
study.
“Right now we have half a dozen or
so facility alternatives on the property
package, and we are going to need to
evaluate those, because some of them
have some very interesting gold anomalies associated with them,” Pontius
explained.
Expansion continues
The junior is also continuing to
expand the footprint of Money Knob.
Two reverse circulation drills evaluating
resource expansion and district-scale
targets at Livengood have returned
encouraging results on opposite ends of
deposit.
“We are stepping out in a couple of
prospect in preparation for a drill program
planned for next year.
“The plan at Trapper Lake is to do some
additional prospecting, mapping and soil
sampling and tee the project up for drilling
in 2011. The work will be focused on a
gold-in-soils anomaly that is greater than
one kilometer long, averages 100 to 200
meters in width and remains open ended
along strike,” he explained. new areas; one down the Lillian Gulch
area and the other one (Olive Zone)is to
the south of the Core Zone as we come
off the side of the hill there – we have
had luck in both those spots,” Pontius
explained.
Hole RC-0355, drilled in Lillian
Gulch about 400 meters north and west
of known mineralization, cut 7.6 meters
grading 3.3 grams per metric ton gold.
RC-0362, drilled 150 meters east of hole
355 intersected 6.1 meters grading 2.9
g/t. These results along with anomalous
gold in soils have prompted the explorer
to continue its investigation of this
expansion area. RC-0392, drilled about
600 meters north of hole 355, intersected strongly altered favorable host rocks.
Assay results are still pending from this
hole drilled in the northern portion of
the Lillian zone.
Olive, an expansion area southeast of
the Core zone, is also showing promise.
Hole MK-RC-0380 cut 21.33 meters
averaging 1.73 g/t gold and included
6.09 meters grading 4.46 g/t gold.
Assays are pending on several holes
drilled in this promising new area.
An aggressive district-wide surface
exploration campaign to define new
deposits similar to Money Knob along
trend has turned up some promising targets for a drill campaign expected to
begin this fall.
“We have got a big regional soil program going on within the large landblock we’ve got and we have defined a
lot of targets out there. Hopefully in
mid-September we’ll have got some helicopter-supported
reconnaissance
drilling on some of those targets to see if
we’ve got other deposits in the trend,”
Pontius added. CONSTANTINE METAL RESOURCES LTD.
PETROLEUM NEWS
22
PETROLEUM NEWS
NORTH OF 60 MINING
•
N U N A V U T
Explorers seek new uranium discoveries
Government, industry and Inuit leaders join forces to achieve better understanding of territory’s potential for lucrative mineral
FORUM URANIUM CORP.
By ROSE RAGSDALE
For Mining News
W
hile intrepid juniors are busy pursuing another season of uranium
exploration in Nunavut, the Government
of Nunavut, in partnership with the federal
government through the Canada-Nunavut
Geoscience Office are participating in a
major collaboration between government,
industry and academia in hopes of achieving similar objectives – gaining a better
understanding of the region’s prospectivity
for the radioactive mineral.
“In Nunavut much of this geology is
poorly understood,” says Peter Taptuna,
Nunavut’s Minister of Economic
Development & Transportation.
Nunavut has partnered with the federal
government in its Geomapping for Energy
and Minerals initiative that is investing
C$75 million into new geoscience mapping north of 60. The GEM-uranium initiative has a number of major mapping
projects across northern Canada, including
GEM’s Thelon Project, in which a partnership of government geologists, mining
companies and university researchers and
students are studying the geology of the
underexplored Thelon Basin. This area is
considered as a highly prospective analogue of the Athabasca Basin directly
south in Saskatchewan. Both basins are
geologically comparable in terms of age,
size, lithologies and presence of unconformity-related uranium mineralization.
Partners in GEM’s Thelon initiative
include AREVA, Bayswater Uranium,
Cameco, Forum Uranium, Titan Uranium,
Mega-Uranium, Uranium North, Western
19
Uranium, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., major
Canadian university, Canada’s Department
of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development and the Government of
Nunavut.
“The Thelon Basin, western frontier
Athabasca and other northern basins and
basement have untapped uranium potential
that can be revealed and promoted by test
fitting the eastern Athabasca Basin unconformity uranium model,” said C.W.
Jefferson, a Geological Survey of Canada
geologist.
Jefferson told participants in the
Nunavut Mining Symposium in April that
GEM intends to extrapolate the uranium
source and key basement units beneath
basins with improved mapping, geophysics and satellite data; track and date
basin development as well as uraniumrelated alteration, sources and pathways.
Among the project’s planned outcomes
is development of a better framework and
ideas for exploration success and improvement of the regions’ resource potential to
attract new industry investment.
He said GEM-U’s future plans include
working in the Thelon Basin and associated basement and magmatic suites this year
and in 2011 with field mapping, satellite
and geophysical synthesis.
In 2011-2013, GEM-U plans to complete the Thelon basin studies with an
assessment of its uranium resource as well
as support other GEM and CNGO projects
in Nunavut, including investigations of
pegmatite uranium on the Cumberland
Peninsula, uranium aspects in Penrhyn,
Fury-Hecla on the Melville Peninsula, the
uranium facets of metallogenic studies of
North Baffin Island, vein uranium in
Archean graphitic conductor at the Lac
Cinquante property and the granitic context for range of uranium occurrence types
at Nueltin Lake. The work also is expected
to result in publication of a number of academic papers and the training of 10 new
scientists, Jefferson said.
Explorers continue hunt for uranium
The largest known uranium deposit in
the Thelon Basin is Areva’s Kiggavik
deposit with an estimated resource of 134
million pounds U3O8 grading 0.27 percent. Areva has submitted a project
description to the Nunavut Impact Review
Board for the development of a uranium
mine with a plan to produce 8 million
pounds of uranium per year over a 17-year
mine life.
Kiggavik attests to the potential for discoveries of large uranium deposits similar
to those of the Athabasca Basin, according
to government and industry officials.
Taptuna said the project demonstrates
that even at this early stage, the Thelon
basin holds the potential to match the
Athabasca basin.
The mining industry invested nearly
C$70 million in uranium exploration in
Nunavut in 2008 and 2009, and is projected to pump another C$30 million into
investigating some 36 uranium properties
in Nunavut during the 2010 season.
Junior chases uranium,
REEs at North Thelon
In July Forum Uranium Corp. reported
the start of summer exploration activities
at its North Thelon project in Nunavut. The
North Thelon project is a large property
comprising 69,316 hectares, or 171,210
acres, that surround Areva’s Kiggavik
Project on the north, east and south sides.
Forum said the only other company
actively exploring in the Kiggavik area is
Cameco Corp. to the west of the Kiggavik
deposits.
During the 12 months that ended May
31, Forum spent nearly C$2.8 million on
the North Thelon Project. It reported nearly C$1.9 million in working capital as of
May 31 and July 12 said it would spend
proceeds from a nearly C$500,000 private
placement with Qwest Investment Fund
Management Ltd. on advancing the North
Thelon project.
A number of historical and new showsee NUNAVUT URANIUM page 23
PETROLEUM NEWS
•
NORTH OF 60 MINING
23
NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA
NUNAVUT URANIUM
ings with grades of up to 8.75 percent
U3O8 have been discovered by Forum on
the North Thelon project in past exploration programs. Forum’s geological crew
and a ground gravity crew began work on
several high priority targets. Goals of the
2010 program include identifying additional gravity targets (zones of alteration);
to refine the geology and structural knowledge and to collect soil samples for geochemistry from high priority areas on the
property. Forum said this information will
position the property for a major drilling
campaign in 2011.
Forum intends to make discoveries and
develop new deposits on the property to
add to AREVA’s existing uranium resource
at Kiggavik and evaluate the potential for a
rare earth deposit it discovered in the
Nutaaq area in 2009. The REE showing in
a 10-kilometer by 8-kilometer, or 7-mile
by 5-mile, intrusive syenite complex,
returned assays with up to 3.8 percent total
REE. Forum plans to conduct a detailed
mapping, soil sampling and rock sampling
campaign in the area to determine the size,
grade and geological controls of the new
REE discovery.
Other mining companies are also busy
pursuing their visions of a big uranium
payday in Nunavut.
In late June, Kivalliq Energy Corp.
posted final assays for its 2010 phase 1
drill program, totaling 2,375 meters in 13
holes, at the Lac Cinquante uranium
deposit on the 91,093-hectare, or 225,000acre, Angilak Property located 220 kilometers, or about 136 miles, southwest of
Baker Lake in central Nunavut. Ten of the
13 holes intersected significant uranium
mineralization. Hole 10-LC-003 had the
widest and highest grade drill intercept to
date, assaying 0.70 percent U3O8 over
13.98 meters (estimated true width of 7.69
meters), including 1.22 meters at 4.68 percent U3O8. In addition, step out hole 10LC-013 identified a new zone 500 meters
west of the deposit, assaying 0.21 percent
U3O8 over 1.96 meters. Lac Cinquante has
a 20.8 million-pound historic uranium
deposit that is open along strike and to
depth.
“Since Kivalliq’s first drill program in
2009, we have an impressive drilling success rate of over 85 percent,” John Robins,
Kivalliq’s president and CEO. “Our team
“The Thelon Basin, western
frontier Athabasca and other
northern basins and basement
have untapped uranium potential
that can be revealed and promoted
by test fitting the eastern
Athabasca Basin unconformity
uranium model.”
—C.W. Jefferson, geologist, Geological Survey
of Canada
has dramatically increased the potential at
Lac Cinquante by intersecting uranium
mineralization at a new zone 500 meters
west along trend from the historic deposit,
and by drilling the highest grades and
widest intercepts to date within the historic
resource area.”
The junior Aug. 10 reported the mobilization of a second drill rig as part of a
10,000-meter phase 2 of its 2010 diamond
drill program at Lac Cinquante. Phase 2
will consist of drilling, prospecting, sampling and field baseline studies, with the
fourth quarter of 2010 dedicated to technical and resource modeling analysis and the
goal of establishing a NI 43-101-compliant
mineral resource by early 2011.
Junior chases uranium
in western Nunavut
Hornby Bay Minerals Exploration Ltd.
reported July 29 that its 2010/11 diamond
drilling and seismic exploration program
was underway on the Coppermine River
Property in the Hornby basin.
Exploration for uranium in the Great
Bear Lake – Hornby Bay Basin region
about 500 kilometers, or 336 miles, north
of Yellowknife, Northwestern Territories,
dates back to the 1940s. A score of companies have explored the area, including Esso
Resources, which discovered a small uranium deposit hosted by sandstones of the
Dismal Lakes Group in 1976.
Hornby Bay also said it raised nearly
C$1.8 million in a rights offering to existing shareholders that will help fund exploration on its 40 mineral leases and 16 mining claims at Coppermine River.
Hornby Bay is also participating in a
50/50 joint venture with MIE Metals Corp.
on 29 mineral claims and 1 mining lease
covering 24,648 hectares, or 60,906 acres.
Hornby Bay is the operator of 10 mineral
claims of the property, covering 10,451
hectares, or 25,825 acres, and owns 13
mineral claims and one mining lease of the
joint venture, covering 14,627 hectares, or
36,144 acres.
For the area covered by its uranium
properties, Hornby Bay has built a multilayered GIS database using ESRI’s
ArcMap software. The multilayered database integrates all geological, geochemical, geophysical, and drill hole information
acquired by HBME, as well as relevant
data from BP Minerals Ltd.’s uranium
exploration data for western Nunavut
acquired in the 1970s and 1980s, which
the junior purchased in 1996. Contact North of 60 Mining News:
Publisher: Shane Lasley
e-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 907.229.6289 • Fax: 907.522.9583
AIC has built a solid reputation by taking an impossible idea and making it an accomplished reality. With more than 20
years of experience, we specialize in providing innovative concepts and technical solutions to our global clients.
MOVING THE EARTH
AIC has been an integral part of every major mine developed in Alaska for nearly a quarter of a century, providing
construction services in the mining industry throughout Alaska and Russia. We have the expertise, equipment and
skilled personnel to tackle the challenging needs of the mining industry – wherever it may take us.
AICLLC.COM
AIC, LLC.
6 0 1 W. 5 T H A V E N U E , S U I T E 4 0 0
ANCHORAGE, AK 99501
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24
NORTH OF 60 MINING
PETROLEUM NEWS
•

Mining News 082910: Petroleum News 121403

Transcription

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