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Mining Quarterly is published in March,June, September and December by the Elko Daily Free Press (USPS No. 173-4320) at 3720 Idaho Street, Elko, Nevada 89801, by Lee Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises. Periodical postage paid at the Elko Post Office. For change of address write 3720 Idaho St., Elko NV 89801
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ELKO — How high will gold prices go? “Mine tours are going very well. They The gold price topped $1,800 an ounce are really a positive part of outreach. I in August and was heading toward the wish we could bring all Nevadans out to $1,900 barrier — at least on the days when show them what mines are doing,” said the economic news looked grim and Nevada Mining Association President stocks were falling. Tim Crowley. “If they don’t live near a When market investments other than mine or in mining country, they don’t the precious metal lose money, know how sophisticated we are.” the gold price shines as inHigh gold prices also mean gold vestors turn to gold as a safe producers are eyeing ore that haven. wasn’t high enough grade to mine This glittering range of high when prices were in the doldrums. prices is attracting more comMine managers talking about their panies to drill for gold in Nevada operations say the gold price is and opening new options for adding life to Nevada mines. gold producers. Articles about mine expansions I remember writing headlines and new mines are inside, such as and stories about the exciteNewmont Mining Corp.’s EmiAdella ment when gold topped $400 an grant Project under construction, Harding Newmont’s Exodus underground ounce, after the downturn that hit a low of $255.95 an ounce on mine now in production and April 2, 2001, according to the Kitco.com Barrick Gold Corp.’s Goldstrike Mine’s charts for the London P.M. fix price. plans to mine Arturo. The climb in gold prices from that low Allied Nevada Gold Corp.’s Hycroft to current highs is catching everyone’s Mine west of Winnemucca is gearing up attention. for more gold and silver mining, and Gold prices have more than doubled Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. is planning to since the recession hit in late 2007. reopen the SSX-Steer underground mine The World Gold Council’s new Gold soon. Articles about these mines also are Demand Trends predicts that because of inside this Mining Quarterly. the impact of the European sovereign debt Of course, all the growth means the crisis, the downgrading of U.S. debt, mines need more qualified people, and all inflationary pressures and the still-fragile of the mines are recruiting, especially for outlook for economic growth in the West, mine engineers. high demand for gold as an investment Updates on employment are included in will continue. articles about mining operations, and John Dobra, director of the Natural there is an article about how the mining Resource Industry Institute and an asso- companies hire summer interns with ciate economics professor at the Uni- mining-related majors in hopes they will versity of Nevada, Reno, writes about the come back to the mines once they have gold price in his column inside this their degrees. Mining Quarterly. The mines also provide summer jobs for Higher prices for silver and copper also the dependents of their employees to help are making a difference, and articles the students earn money for college. inside the quarterly look at silver and On the exploration front, the number of copper operations. companies drilling or hoping to drill in The good gold prices caught the atten- Nevada continues to grow. Although I tion of Nevada legislators earlier this year couldn’t write about all of them, I put when they were trying to figure out ways to together a look at where a number of the bring Nevada out of the red ink, but many companies are exploring, and that article of them hadn’t ever seen a gold mine. is in this edition of the Mining Quarterly. In hopes of teaching people more about ——————— Adella Harding is editor of the Mining the industry, the Nevada Mining Association planned a half dozen or so mine Quarterly and mining editor for the Elko tours for big city residents, legislators and Daily Free Press. Mining news is on the basically anyone interested in learning elkodaily.com website. Her email address is aharding@elkodaily.com. more about mining.
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Mining is under way in Phase E at the Round Mountain Mine open pit in this Aug. 9 photo. This is one of four phases crews are mining in the pit at the same time this year. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
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ROUND MOUNTAIN — Round Mountain Gold Corp. is taking a serious look at another pit expansion where the administrative offices are now, and the high gold price is an incentive for such a project. “We’ve officially started investigating what we call the Deep Northwest. It’s right where we are sitting,” Round Mountain General Manager Randy Burggraff said in an interview in his office. He said drilling is under way on the possible expansion, as well as hydrology work and high wall geotechnical work for Deep Northwest. Three exploration drilling rigs were on site in August. The investigation also includes looking at the economics of the project for operator Kinross Gold Corp., which owns 50 percent of Round Mountain Mine. Barrick
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Gold Corp. owns the other half of the operation in Nye County. “The challenge for the corporation is betting on a comfortable gold price. If the corporation believes the price will stay up, there is a tremendous amount of gold down there,” Burggraff said. The project would entail a “tremendous amount of stripping off the top,” however, to reach the gold, he said. There also may be an opportunity to go underground for the higher grades while the stripping would be under way at Deep Northwest, Burggraff said. “At these prices it’s really a motivation to study it,” Round Mountain Operations Manager Bruce Thieking said. The gold price is in the record range of $1,800 to $1,900 an ounce. Burggraff said Deep Northwest could See ROUND, page 3
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
This conveyor system at the Round Mountain Mine in Nye County is in operation after relocation and new construction to make room for the expanding open pit.
Round ... Continued from page 2 add 10 years to the mine life that now extends to 2019, commenting that the mine has been in a “perpetual shutdown phase for 30 years. We’ve been constantly able to extend the mine life.” Along with relocation of the administration building, the proposed project would mean relocation of the truck shop and medical clinic, and water storage ponds would have to be rebuilt, Burggraff said. Environmental Manager Gina Myers said the project would require U.S. Bureau of Land Management permitting, and Round Mountain and the BLM have “really good communication that may minimize the time it takes” for per approval. Deep Northwest isn’t that far along, however. “We are doing internal scoping. We are just hopeful right now,” Myers said. Current expansion Deep Northwest would be another relocation project for Round Mountain Gold Corp., which has crushers and conveyors to make room for expansions, most recently for Phase H. Deep Northwest is well into the future, if the partners decide to do it, but Round Mountain plans to begin producing gold
out of the new Gold Hill open pit to the north in the first quarter of 2012 while also expanding the Round Mountain Pit. “Gold Hill is exciting, getting it opened up, and Deep Northwest has huge potential and is very exciting,” Burggraff said in August. As part of the current expansion project, crews are mining deeper into the pit and working on the Phase H layback, the mine plans to start the Fairview area in September and will start mining Gold Hill in October. “We will be in all four expansion areas by the end of the year, and we will be mining all at the same time,” Burggraff said. All the mining in the new areas won’t show in added gold production in the near term, however. “That will maintain production. In fact, production will drop off a little bit in 2012 by 25,000 to 50,000 ounces to more like 300,000 to 320,000 ounces,” he said. The drop in production will be because of all the stripping of waste material to reach the gold zones, but “production will pick up to more normal rates in 2013 for a couple of years.” Kinross reported in August that Round Mountain produced 47,151 ounces of gold See ROUND, page 4
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Round ... Continued from page 3 in the second quarter for its 50 percent share, up slightly from 46,927 ounces in the 2010 quarter. Total cost of sales was $739 per ounce in the 2011 quarter, up from $546 per ounce last year. Burggraff said the price of commodities, especially diesel, has gone up, as has the cost of cyanide and the cost of explosives for blasting, but he expects the mine to be on budget by year’s end. Round Mountain has slightly more than 800 employees and expected 200 contractors on site by the end of August, putting the total on site at more than 1,000, again. Burggraff said the number of people on site was at more than 1,000 much of the year but dropped back when the earthwork and road-building for Gold Hill was finished, but the contracts hadn’t been let for the next phase at Gold Hill. He anticipated 150 contractors will be at Gold Hill. The other 50 are full-time on site, including those working for Cashman Equipment, which has a shop at the mine. Intermountain Electric also has permanent employees on site. Gold Hill Plans call for mining Gold Hill as a satellite of Round Mountain, but Gold Hill will have its own leach pad, process facilities and waste dump. Burggraff said there will be more exploration and drilling as mining is under way, but he doesn’t anticipate any additional discoveries. “Gold Hill is pretty much a finite deposit,” he said. Work is slated to begin in September on the process plant and maintenance facilities, and ore will be mined beginning in October with the first production once the ore is processed. All the ore is oxide and will go to the leach pad, with the majority to be run-ofmine, but Thieking said there will be a crusher at Gold Hill. Run-of-mine ore is placed directly from the pit to the leach pad. Crushing costs more but provides better gold recovery. “As the gold price goes up, we’re leaning toward more crushing,” Thieking said. Burggraff estimated Gold Hill’s development is a $50 million project. Myers said there will be a small amount
A rebuilt and repainted P&H electric shovel with a 26-yard bucket drops a load of material into the bed of a 250-ton Caterpillar haul truck on Aug. 9 in the Phase H pushback of Round Mountain Mine’s expanding open pit. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
Bruce Thieking, operations manager at the Round Mountain Mine, stands above the new Gold Hill site. The road is complete and the earthwork done for the waste-rock facility, leach pad and pit. The leach pad is the cleared area in the center background and behind that area is where the new pit will be developed. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
See ROUND, page 5
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Round ... Continued from page 4 of dewatering at Gold Hill, but not in the beginning, and there will pit lake when mining ends. The water will be good enough quality, however, so the pit lake won’t require treatment. Equipment for Gold Hill will come from the current fleet, which includes 20 250-ton Caterpillar haul trucks and 20 others that are 200-ton or 150-ton. While Round Mountain added two new haul trucks early this year, Burggraff said Cashman Equipment “does a great job for us” keeping the older trucks in operation. With all of the projects in progress, Myers said there isn’t much new reclamation work, but the mine does concurrent reclamation whenever possible. “Right now, we are in a growth phase. We really optimize and use our land efficiently and minimize disturbance,” she said. Round Mountain town Round Mountain still is a company town, although not in the full sense of a company town in earlier times. Round Mountain Gold owns the grocery store, the nine-hole golf course and child-care center, along with roughly 75 houses. “The company bought eight new houses, and we plan another half dozen next year,” Burggraff said. “Part of Deep Northwest will be looking at housing. We maintaining now, but it is tight,” he said. Round Mountain’s human resources manager, Denise Carver, said the mine’s remote location is a huge issue when recruiting for workers, but the advantages are the people and the outdoor activities. “The best thing is to find the best fit because some people love it,” she said. Las Vegas, Reno and Elko are each roughly three and a half to four hours away. Tonopah is 50 miles to the south. “Our biggest need now is technical people,” Carver said, especially mining engineers. Round Mountain has its own four-year electrician apprentice program on site through Great Basin College, and the mine is part of the Maintenance Training Cooperative that sends students to GBC for technical courses, she said. The mine had 19 college interns in mining-related fields this summer as part of its recruiting effort, as well. “We hope to groom the interns, and they will come back full-time,” Carver said.
Nola Richardson weighs blast-hole samples on Aug. 9 in the laboratory at the Round Mountain Mine, operated by Kinross Gold Corp. in Nye County. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
“I like it at Round Mountain. The people are friendly,” said Jarrett Kemmerly, a senior at the University of Nevada, Reno, majoring in mining engineering. Kinross production Round Mountain is one of three gold mines Kinross operates in North America, and total North American production in the second quarter was 171,115 ounces, compared with 183,660 ounces in the 2010 quarter. Fort Knox in Alaska produced 77,727 ounces in the quarter, down from 86,270 ounces in the 2010 quarter, and Kettle River-Buckhorn in Washington produced 46,237 ounces, down from 50,463 ounces last year. According to the Kinross earnings report, Fort Knox’s cost of sales was $678 per ounce in the quarter, up from $637 last year, while Kettle River’s cost of sales was $403 per ounce, up from $307 in the 2010 quarter. Companywide, Toronto-based Kinross produced a record 676,245 gold equivalent ounces, 26 percent higher than the 538,270 ounces produced in the 2010 quarter. Production cost of sales was $576 per gold equivalent ounce, up from $494 per ounce in the 2010 quarter. Kinross stated that much of the in-
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Drillers Todd and Tony Cahill and Seth Black work on a National reverse-circulation rig on Aug. 9 at the Round Mountain Mine in Nye County. crease was due to additional production from Kupol in Russia because the company increased its ownership to 100 percent on April 27 and from West African
operations acquired Sept. 17, 2010. The company stated that it remains on track to produce between 2.6 million and 2.7 million ounces this year.
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CARLIN — “At this gold price, there is a lot going on,” said Randy Buffington, general manager of Barrick Gold Corp.’s Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin. The gold price in the range of $1,800 to $1,900 an ounce means Goldstrike and all gold producers can look at lowergrade ore that wouldn’t be mined at lower prices. “It doesn’t change the number of ounces but it extends the life of mines. Goldstrike is no different. Goldstrike is an incredible deposit, but there are definitely more opportunities both open pit and underground, more so underground,” Buffington said. For the open-pit operations, Goldstrike is looking at the planned Arturo Project at the nearby Dee site to keep Barrick employees and mine equipment busy well into the future, while mining also will continue at the huge Betze Pit. Refractory ore from Arturo that won’t be processed on a planned leach pad will be processed at Goldstrike, and Buffington said moving Goldstrike equipment and people to Arturo makes sense. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Elko District is completing a draft environmental impact statement on Arturo, which is in Elko County. The BLM expects to release the draft EIS by October, according to Janice Stadelman at the Elko office. “We hope to start construction toward the end of 2012,” Buffington said. Arturo is a joint venture, with Barrick as the operator and 60 percent owner and Goldcorp Inc. as the 40 percent owner. Goldcorp owns the reclaimed Dee Mine after acquiring Glamis Gold, and Barrick already mines at Dee with the Storm underground operation. Buffington said that for Goldstrike “Arturo will be just an extension of our mining operations. Goldstrike really has taken on the face of a regional facility.” Processing ore Goldstrike is processing more and more ore from other Barrick operations in Nevada, he said. The Cortez Mine in Lander County sends refractory ore by truck to Goldstrike for processing, and the Ruby Hill Mine near Eureka is sending truckloads of ore to Goldstrike. The Turquoise Ridge Mine in Humboldt County sends ore to Goldstrike on occa-
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Joe Riney, information systems administrator for the Nevada Mining Association, takes a photograph of Barrick Gold Corp.’s giant Betze Pit at the Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin on June 30 while helping host a mine tour group from Reno. sion, as well. Goldstrike’s ability to process ores at its roaster or autoclave facilities from the other mines means more gold production for the other mines and extending processing jobs at Goldstrike, Buffington said in an Aug. 17 interview. “Goldstrike has processed over 1 million ounces of toll ore,” he said. That’s on top of the more than 37 million ounces of gold Goldstrike has poured over the years from its own operations. “Adding the toll ore, Goldstrike is about 50,000 ounces short of 40 million ounces,” Buffington said. “It don’t think there has ever been a mine like this. We still continue to kick out world-class ounces, and there are a lot of years of mining and processing left at Goldstrike.” According to Barrick’s second-quarter earnings report, the Goldstrike Mine
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See BARRICK, page 7
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
The Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin processes gold ore in the roaster facility from the operations on site and Barrick Gold Corp.’s Cortez and Ruby Hill mines in Nevada.
Barrick ... Continued from page 6 produced 299,000 ounces of gold in the quarter, up slightly from 297,000 ounces in the 2010 quarter, while total cash costs were down slightly to $511 per ounce from $517 per ounce in the second quarter of last year. The toll ore all comes from Barrick mines. Buffington said the facilities don’t have the capacity now to handle ore from other companies. Goldstrike will be increasing capacity, however, at the autoclave mill, where Barrick had shut down all but one autoclave train when gold prices were lower and there wasn’t as much ore to process in the autoclaves. “When we shut back the autoclave operations, it was definitely a different gold price, but we have really bright people and will invest in the autoclaves and have them fully staffed and operating for years,” Buffington said. He said Goldstrike just commissioned the first mercury controls at the autoclaves that use a new technology developed at Goldstrike. Work is under way to rebuild and
The North Post portal, top left, and the Betze Portal in Barrick Gold Corp.’s Betze Pit at Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin, connect with the Rodeo end of Barrick Gold Corp.’s underground Meikle Mine. Meikle and Rodeo also have shafts leading underground. Ross Andreson Mining Quarterly
refurbish the autoclaves, and that work will continue into next year, according to Buffington. Barrick will need the full capacity of the autoclaves if the company goes
through with plans for a large pit at Turquoise Ridge, which is producing gold only from underground operations, said Lou Schack, manager of communications and community affairs for Barrick
Gold of North America. “If we do, it will be the largest open pit in Nevada, twice the size of Goldstrike,” See BARRICK, page 8
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Barrick ... Continued from page 7 Barrick Gold of North America President Greg Lang said during a presentation in Elko in early August. He said at that time Barrick is looking at a rail line from Turquoise Ridge to Cortez and Goldstrike. “We move a lot of material around Nevada,” Lang said. Goldstrike also includes the underground Meikle Mine that takes in the Rodeo and North Post, and Buffington said the cost profile for Meikle is “better than ever” because of the efficiency of the miners. The cost per ton of hoisted ore is still roughly $100 even with higher prices for steel, concrete and fuel in recent years. Banshee Deposit Meikle is now moving into the Banshee Deposit to the north, he said. Buffington said a new vent raise is under construction for Banshee and to provide additional ventilation at the north end of the mine, and he expected the project to be completed in 120 days from Aug. 17. J.S. Redpath is doing the
Russ Osborne, operations superintendent at Barrick Gold Corp.’s underground Meikle Mine north of Carlin, explains the mesh and bolting system used for ground stability to a tour group sponsored by the Nevada Mining Association. Ross Andreson Mining Quarterly
work at Banshee. “Redpath has really become part of the mine,” Buffington said. Redpath also is the contract miner on Storm, which has its portals in the Dee
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Pit, and he said he expects Storm to continue to the end of 2012, now that crews added reserves. The plan had been to mine through the end of this year. “We’d like to keep the crews mining
there,” Buffington said. The Arturo Project that will deepen and widen the Dee Pit will also at some See BARRICK, page 9
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Keith Testerman, senior mine geologist for Barrick Gold Corp.’s Betze Pit operations at the Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin, talks on June 30 about mine operations during a Nevada Mining Association-sponsored tour. He said the pit is growing to the north-northwest.
Barrick ... Continued from page 8 point take out the Storm portals. Goldstrike also plans a couple of other projects next year, the construction of a new tailings dam and construction of its first paste backfill plant. The paste backfill is a mixture of fly ash, tailings and concrete and will replace the cemented backfill currently used underground. Buffington said the paste will be pumped underground and mean more convenience for the miners and fewer trucks. Tailings are what remains after ore is processed and reusing the tailings into a backfill that goes underground is “proven technology that just hasn’t been used in Nevada,” Buffington said. He said Goldstrike gave a presentation to Great Basin Mine Watch on the paste backfill project, and the environmental organization “was excited about the project. It’s good to have that confirmation.” The paste plant will be at the end of the tailings line, and Buffington said there will be a tails recovery plant for any gold still remaining. He said next year will be one of Goldstrike’s bigger years when it comes to projects and the number of contractors likely to be on site, and he estimated Barrick will be spending $350 million to
$400 million at Goldstrike. Adding employees With all the mining and processing planned, Buffington said Goldstrike will have more than 1,700 employees next year, but it is tough to find enough people, especially underground. He said there are roughly 590 people working underground, and the plan is to reach 650 people by next year. “We will be expanding at Goldstrike through all divisions next year, starting with the autoclaves and open pit,” Buffington said. Goldstrike lost some of its experienced people to the Pueblo Viejo Project in the Dominican Republic, where Barrick needs them to bring that project into production, Schack said. Buffington said there are people willing to move to Elko but can’t because they live in places where their homes have lost so much value they can’t sell them to relocate. A tight rental market also contributes to the problem. “While we have a lot of jobs, it is harder and harder to recruit because the harder it is for people to move,” he said. Barrick is financing the new Rabbit Brush Run Apartments under construction on Mountain City Highway to help See BARRICK, page 10
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Barrick ... Continued from page 9 with the housing crunch, Schack said. Along with all the mining and projects planned, Goldstrike continues to do exploration drilling and drilling to convert resources into gold reserves. Buffington said there is usually an average of five rigs on site. North American region There are nine operating mines and two major projects that fall under the umbrella of Barrick Gold of North America, Lang told 100 Barrick summer interns at the Elko Convention Center in early August. “Barrick is far and away the largest gold producer, and Barrick North America is about the fifth largest,” he said. The mines include Goldstrike, Cortez, Turquoise Ridge, Ruby Hill, Bald Mountain in White Pine County, the Round Mountain Mine in Nye County, Marigold in Humboldt County, Golden Sunlight in Montana and Hemlo in Canada. Lang said Sunlight was “pretty much on its last legs” when Barrick acquired the mine in the acquisition of Placer
Dome a few years ago, but a pit expansion has been under way the past three years. “We should get our money back in the first year of operation,” Lang said. “There are certainly opportunities to add to the reserves there.” The projects are Pueblo Viejo and Donlin Gold in Alaska that Lang said is a “huge undeveloped gold deposit of 40 million ounces. It could be a mine like Cortez and Goldstrike.” Barrick expects to put Pueblo Viejo into production in mid-2012. The project was hit with a recent setback because of flooding in May. “It’s a big facility in a part of the world with not a lot of mining experience,” Lang said. “We will be rotating least 100 people to provide the expertise that doesn’t exist in the Dominican Republic.” Pueblo Viejo is a joint venture with Goldcorp. Barrick is the operator and owns 60 percent. Goldcorp is the 40 percent owner of the project that is expected to have a mine life of more than 25 years.
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Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Russ Osborne, operations superintendent for Barrick Gold Corp.’s underground Meikle Mine, points out a loader during a Nevada Mining Association-sponsored tour. The June 30 tour was one of a half dozen the association arranged during the summer season at Nevada mines to acquaint people with the industry. The feasibility study on Donlin Gold is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter and permitting to begin next year, according to Lang. He said Donlin would be a surface operation 300 miles
from Anchorage in a 50-50 joint venture with Nova Gold. “It’s a few years out,” Lang said. See BARRICK, page 11
Barrick ... Continued from page 10 Production figures The North American region’s production was ahead of expectations, according to Barrick’s report, providing 902,000 ounces in the second quarter. Cortez contributed the most gold production in the second quarter, 419,000 ounces, up from 294,000 ounces in the second quarter of last year, and total cash costs were down to $220 per ounce from $234 per ounce in the 2010 quarter. Round Mountain Mine provided 46,000 ounces of gold in the second quarter to Barrick for its 50 percent interest in the mine operated by partner Kinross Gold Corp. The mine produced 45,000 ounces in the 2010 quarter for Barrick. Total cash costs were $634 per ounce in the 2011 quarter, compared with $611 per ounce last year. The Bald Mountain Mine produced 16,000 ounces at a total cash cost of $496 per ounce, compared with 13,000 ounces at a cost of $717 an ounce last year, according to Barrick. Marigold produced 13,000 ounces at $722 per ounce for Barrick’s one-third
share, up from 8,000 ounces last year, when the total cash cost was $167 per ounce. Goldcorp owns the remaining twothirds of Marigold and is the operator. The Ruby Hill Mine produced 34,000 ounces at a total cash cost of $272 per ounce, compared with 12,000 ounces at $715 per ounce last year, the Barrick report shows. The Turquoise Ridge underground mine produced 29,000 ounces for Barrick’s 75 percent share in the 2011 quarter at a total cash cost of $618 per ounce, compared with 31,000 ounces at $595 per ounce last year. Newmont Mining Corp. owns 25 percent of Turquoise Ridge. Outside of Nevada, Barrick is growing with the acquisition of Equinox Minerals in July, which brings new copper production to Barrick from the Lumwana Mine in Zambia and a project in Saudi Arabia. Barrick continues to estimate gold production of 7.6 million to 8 million ounces this year and between 455 million and 475 million pounds of copper, including from Lumwana. Companywide, Barrick’s gold production rose to 1.98 million ounces in the
quarter, compared with 1.94 million ounces in the 2010 quarter. Total cash costs were $445 per ounce in this year’s quarter, compared with total cash costs of $401 last year, according to the second-quarter earnings report. Barrick earnings Toronto-based Barrick announced a 35 percent increase in net earnings in the second quarter, attributing the rise to higher gold and copper prices. Net earnings totaled $1.2 billion, or $1.16 per share, up from $859 million, or 87 cents per share, in the 2010 quarter, while adjusted net earnings were at $1.1 billion, or $1.12 per share, up 36 percent from the $824 million, or 84 cents per share, profit in the 2010 quarter. The average realized gold price in the second quarter was $1,513 per ounce. The average realized price in the 2010 quarter was $1,205 an ounce. The average spot copper price was $4.14 per pound in the quarter, up from $3.18 last year, and the average realized price was $4.07 in the 2011 quarter and $2.93 per pound last year, according to Barrick.
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
A P&H electric shovel fills a haul truck as another haul truck heads out in the Betze Pit at Barrick Gold Corp.’s Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin.
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EUREKA — Visitors to Barrick Gold Corp.’s Ruby Hill Mine in Eureka County had to stay in their vehicles one August day as lightning flashed nearby. Barrick has a new lightning detection and warning system at all its operations, and Ruby Hill had spotted 111 strikes within a 20-mile radius of the gold mine, including strikes within five miles of the mine. At five miles, warnings sound, and mine employees have to stay in their vehicles or inside buildings until the all-clear. “Safety is still the No. 1 priority here. We added the new lightning detection system to protect employees and contractors,” said Ruby Hill General Manager Andy Cole. “All Barrick mines have installed this system.” He said no one is allowed outside during a lightning warning, but the equipment operators can continue working, if they keep their windows closed, he said. Barrick Gold of North America President See RUBY HILL, 13
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Barrick Gold Corp.’s Ruby Hill Mine open pit in Eureka County has steeper walls than most gold mines because of the quality of the ground. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
Ruby Hill ... Continued from page 12 Greg Lang said lightning struck and killed a worker roughly four years ago at the Pueblo Viejo Project in the Dominican Republic while the man was sitting under a tree. Barrick and 40 percent partner Goldcorp Inc. are developing Pueblo Viejo and expect to go into production by mid-year 2012. Mining at Ruby Hill At Ruby Hill, mining is under way in Phase 7 in the open pit, and the current mining is yielding sulfide ore that is stockpiled and then sent to Barrick’s Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin for processing in the roaster or the autoclaves, Cole said. “We will do this really up to the end of the year,” he said. Capurro Trucking hauls the ore to Goldstrike, and Cole said roughly 30 trucks a day are leaving the site with the sulfide ore that is “higher grade and better recovery” than the oxide ore also Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
See RUBY HILL, page 14
Caterpillar haul trucks sit on the ready line at Barrick Gold Corp.’s Ruby Hill Mine near Eureka as their drivers end a 10-hour shift. The trucks are refueled and lubricated before the second 10-hour shift begins.
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Ruby Hill ... Continued from page 13 mined at Ruby Hill. “We’re shipping six days a week now. Capurro is doing a fantastic job,” Cole said. Crews also were mining oxide in early August and work has started on Phase 8 of the pit. Cole said Phase 7 mining will be over by the end of October, and the major stripping phase on Phase 8 will begin in October “so we won’t be in ore until 2012. Initially, it will be oxide and in 2013 we will be back to sulfide and will mine both sulfide and oxide.” The oxide ores are placed on the leach pad at Ruby Hill for processing, but the sulfide ores need the heat to release the gold, which requires roasting or the autoclave process. “Ruby Hill has always been in an ore phase, then a stripping phase so it’s difficult to compare us from year to year,” Cole said. The Ruby Hill Mine produced 34,000 Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
See RUBY HILL, page 15
Barrick Gold Corp.’s Ruby Hill Mine general manager, Andy Cole, stands in front of a conveyor system at the gold mine near Eureka. The conveyor takes gold ore to the leach pad.
14 MINING QUARTERLY, Elko, Nevada FALL 2011
Ruby Hill ... Continued from page 14 ounces of gold at a total cash cost of $272 per ounce in the second quarter, compared with 12,000 ounces at $715 per ounce in the 2010 quarter, according to Barrick Gold’s earnings report. The mine also has filed a plan of operations amendment with the U.S Bureau of Land Management’s Battle Mountain office to address the continued transportation of ore to Goldstrike after 2012 and development of a small step out of the open pit, Cole said. He was hopeful the BLM would kick off the National Environmental Policy Act process in September and that the amendment can be done with an environmental assessment. Exploration continues at Ruby Hill, and Cole said the focus is on stepping out at the East Archimedes Pit in hopes of expanding gold reserves. The mine life as of last year is to mine to 2015 and process ore for several years after mining ends. The reserves totaled 750,000 ounces of gold when Homestake Mining Co.
Melanie Lawson, a community relations representative for Barrick Gold of North America, looks out in early August at the new Phase 8 of Barrick’s Ruby Hill Mine near the town of Eureka. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
See RUBY HILL, page 16
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Ruby Hill ... Continued from page 15 poured the first gold from Ruby Hill in 1997, but the mine celebrated 1 million ounces of gold production in 2009. “It’s well on its way to 1.25 million ounces,” Cole said in early August. “We’re a small operation but very viable, and we have great costs,” he said. Barrick acquired Homestake in 2001, stopped mining in the fall of 2002 when gold prices plummeted and later reopened the mine, with the first gold pour of the second opening in February 2007. The mine near the town of Eureka has a little more than 130 employees, and Ruby Hill’s 60 housing units in the town are full. When it comes to reclamation, Ruby Hill has finished the east waste dump and seeded it last fall, but Cole said the mine won’t use any goats this year on the dump. The goats might be back next year, however, to pound in the seed, he said. The mine leased roughly 400 goats in the fall of 2009 and 2010. Historic Ruby Hill Ruby Hill is a guardian of remnants of historic mining on property Barrick owns in the vicinity of the modern mine, and Cole pointed to a protected dump pile on site during a tour. The Holly Shaft and a metal building are fenced while a See RUBY HILL, page 17
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Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
The old Holly Shaft is a reminder of how long there has been mining in the Eureka area. In the background are new waste-rock dumps for Barrick Gold Corp.’s Ruby Hill operations. The remnants of historic mining are on private Barrick land. “Barrick over the years has done a pretty good job of mitigating abandoned mines,” said Andy Cole, Ruby Hill’s general manager.
Ruby Hill ... Continued from page 16 modern-day waste dump is nearby. The T.L. Shaft also is preserved in the Ruby Hill Mining District. “Barrick over the years has done a pretty good job of mitigating abandoned mines,” Cole said. He also said Ruby Hill stays involved with the community, recently sponsoring a 5K run, sponsoring a new scoreboard for the new football field at Eureka High School and meeting with the community advisory board. The mine also helped sponsor the National Night Out event and has donated to the Eureka swimming pool and climbing wall. Ruby Hill sponsored five summer students who were headed for Great Basin College in the fall under Barrick scholarships for mining-related technology studies. Four of the Eureka High School graduates worked at Ruby Hill and one at Barrick’s Bald Mountain Mine. Ruby Hill also had four summer interns from universities, two in metallurgy, one in mining engineering and one in industrial hygiene.
Adrianna Torres of Brighton, Colo., a student at the Colorado School of Mines, works at an atomic absorption unit in the laboratory at Barrick Gold Corp.’s Ruby Hill Mine near Eureka. She was a summer intern at the mine. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
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CARLIN — Newmont Mining Corp. expects to be mining at the Emigrant Project in mid-2012 as construction continues at the site roughly 10 miles south of Carlin. “Newmont is real excited to get the permits, bring the operation on line and see new opportunities for our workforce, as well as creating jobs,” said Rocky Pray, project manager for Emigrant. “At start-up, there will be 120 people, and we will ramp up to 145 people,” he said. “We’re actually hiring right now to begin training.” Workers will be a mix of seasoned workers and new hires, and Pray said there is “quite a level of interest already” from Newmont workers interested in moving to Emigrant. The Emigrant operation will be a series of eight small open pits, with each one to be backfilled as the mining progresses, and all the ore will be placed on a leach pad and processed on site. “It’s pretty straightforward,” Pray said. “The initial development pit will be to the north, and the mine plan will be to work to the west,” he said. See EMIGRANT, page 19
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Matt Murray, left, senior external communications representative for Newmont Mining Corp., and Rocky Pray, Newmont’s project manager for the Emigrant Project, look over the future location of a series of Emigrant open pits. The Boart Longyear drilling rig “is right on the eastern edge of the pit area,” Pray said on Aug. 10. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Rocky Pray, manager of Newmont Mining Corp.’s Emigrant Project, points to the map showing the location of a new leach pad and a planned series of open pits at the site south of Carlin.
Emigrant ... Continued from page 18 Brian Hill, Newmont’s executive vice president of operations, said in a teleconference on the company’s second-quarter earnings report that Emigrant is expected to produce 80,000 ounces of gold a year. Along with the mining, Newmont will be creating a permanent stream channel that will remain as a postreclamation feature and was one of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s requirements for the project. The mine life is expected to be eight to 10 years, and the processing of ore from the leach pads will continue another four to six years, the BLM document states. New leach pad The leach pad is under construction, with High Mark Construction doing the earthwork and Comanco Environmental Corp. installing the liner, and the process ponds also were under development in August. “The leach pad is designed for three phases of construction, and it will
hold 100 million tons of ore over its life,” Pray said. He said mining will move 150 million to 180 million tons of material over the mine life with annual mining of 16 million to 18 million tons, with roughly 10 million tons of ore a year going to the leach pad. “The ore is pretty close to the surface so there isn’t a requirement for much pre-stripping,” Pray said. There were three drill rigs on site in mid-August, two of them working on definition of gold reserves and one working on a water well. Newmont hadn’t yet let the contract in mid-August for the mechanical and electrical work, construction of a process plant and construction of a new wash bay. Pray said there were between 40 and 50 contractors on site in mid-August, but he expected the project to ramp up to 80 contractors. Newmont is developing Emigrant with cost savings in mind. See EMIGRANT, page 20
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Emigrant ... Continued from page 19 “This is a brownfield operation building off previous mining,” Pray said. Using Rain facilities The company is reusing the facilities remaining at the nearby shutdown Rain Mine, including the truck shop. Pray said offices will be remodeled at the truck shop. Emigrant workers will report in at the Rain site, now called Emigrant, while the truck ready line will be about two miles from the offices and shop. The process workers will report to the carbon-inleach process plant yet to be built about three miles from Rain, an open-pit and underground operation in reclamation. “Everything sits east of Rain,” Pray said. The process plant will have two trains and a capacity of about 8,000 gallons per minute, and there also will be a carbon-handling facility, he said. The carbon will be refined into gold bars at the Gold Quarry Mine north of Carlin. The entire process area, including the leach pad, is fenced. Lamoille Fencing did the work. Newmont plans to use seven Caterpillar haul See EMIGRANT, page 21
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Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
High Mark Construction prepares a leach pad site for Newmont Mining Corp.’s Emigrant Project south of Carlin. In the background is the portion of pad liner in place on Aug. 9 on the site. Comanco Environmental Corp. is installing the liner.
Emigrant ... Continued from page 20 trucks from the company’s current fleet at Nevada operations. “We will use 150-ton haul trucks. We’re rebuilding these trucks, as well as a hydraulic shovel and wheel loader,” Pray said. Along with the mining, Newmont will be creating a permanent stream channel that will remain as a post-reclamation feature and was one of the BLM’s requirements for the project. The channel will go into the high wall of the pit area. Emigrant may appear now to be a small, straightforward project, but the permitting time for the project was longer than most. Newmont ended up doing two environmental impact statements on the project, the first starting in 2004. The rewrite started in 2008 and the BLM released the final EIS last December and project approval in late January. The main issue was with waste rock characterization, according to the BLM. Newmont projects Emigrant will be the newest of Newmont’s Nevada surface mines, but the company’s new Exodus underground mine went into production in the second quarter, and another underground mine called Pete Bajo will be in production soon. Both are north of Carlin. Also, Newmont expects to increase gold production with the recent resumption of mining at Gold Quarry after mediation of a giant slide in the pit, and Newmont stated in its earnings report that copper production will increase with the new copper leach project at the Phoenix Mine near Battle Mountain. The BLM’s Battle Mountain District is working on a draft supplemental environmental impact statement on the copper project. “The BLM and Newmont are finalizing baseline documents used to support the environmental analysis. The draft SEIS should be issued within the next two to three months,” said Dave Davis, the project leader for the BLM on the copper project that will involve leaching copper ores that aren’t processed now. The copper project will add 20 million to 25 million pounds of new copper production a year starting in mid-2013, Hill said. He also said in the teleconference that
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Matt Murray, left, senior external communications representative for Newmont Mining Corp., talks with Faran Main, Newmont’s safety manager for the company’s Emigrant Project, at the site of the project’s new leach pad. In the background, project manager Rocky Pray, left, talks with Derek Sikes, an external communications representative. High Mark Construction is doing the earthwork and Comanco is installing the liner.
Newmont Mining Corp.’s process ponds for the Emigrant Project south of Carlin are shown under construction Aug. 10, with High Mark Construction doing the earthwork. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
See EMIGRANT, page 22
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Emigrant ... Continued from page 21 a second mill at Phoenix is an option. Newmont also is looking at the Buffalo Valley Project near Phoenix, but the BLM hasn’t started the permitting process, according to Tessa Teems at the Battle Mountain BLM. Newmont additionally plans the Genesis Project north of Carlin that received BLM approval in May. The BLM record of decision states that roughly 687 people will be employed at Genesis. A Newmont fact sheet on Genesis states that Newmont will mine 60 million tons of gold ore and 455 million tons of waste rock over the project’s life. The Genesis Project includes expanding the existing Genesis open pit, backfilling the Bluestar and Beast pits then partially backfilling the Genesis pit as mining progresses over a 12-year mine life and expansion of two waste dumps. Newmont also plans to develop a new pit called Bluestar Ridge at Genesis. Hill also said in the teleconference that Newmont expects permits later this year for the Vista 7 layback at the Twin Creeks Mine in Humboldt County, and this mine will produce 600,000 ounces over four or five years. The BLM’s Winnemucca office released the environmental assessment for Vista 7 in early August, and the deadline for comments is Sept. 6. The Long Canyon Project in Elko County also offers potential. The company has completed 65,617 feet of exploration drilling since acquiring Long Canyon in its purchase of Fronteer Gold in April. Hill said “our extension drilling program continues to highlight growth potential.” Newmont production Companywide, Newmont produced 1.23 million ounces of gold in the second quarter, compared with 1.3 million ounces of gold in the 2010 quarter. Copper production of 44 million pounds was down 45 percent from the 2010 quarter. Gold costs applicable to sales were $583 per ounce and $1.34 per pound in the quarter. Newmont President and Chief Executive Officer Richard O’Brien said the company’s outlook for 2011 production remains the same at between 5.1 million and 5.3 million ounces of gold and between 190 million and 220 million
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pounds of copper. Nevada’s production in the second quarter totaled 357,000 ounces of gold at a cost applicable to sales of $636 per ounce, up 9 percent over last year due to lower production and higher diesel prices, partially offset by higher byproduct credits. Nevada produced 420,000 ounces of gold at cost of $584 per ounce in the 2010 quarter. Newmont’s main projects for the future outside Nevada include the Conga in Peru and the Tanami Shaft Project in Australia that the company’s board recently approved. The Conga Project is expected to begin production in late 2014 or early 2015 and produce 300,000 to 350,000 ounces of gold per year and 80 million to 120 million pounds of copper for NewNewmont Mining Corp. produced 1.23 million ounces of gold in the second quarter, compared with 1.3 million ounces of gold in the 2010 quarter. Copper production of 44 million pounds was down 45 percent from the 2010 quarter. mont. Newmont’s partner for Conga is Buenaventura. The shaft project is expected to go into production in late 2014 or early 2015 and add between 60,000 and 90,000 ounces of gold to Tanami production each year, according to Newmont. The company expects to invest up to $2.9 billion for these two projects combined. Newmont’s net income from continuing operations rose 37 percent in the second quarter to $523 million, or $1.06 per share, boosted by higher gold and copper prices. The attributable net income for the quarter ending June 30 compares with $382 million, or 78 cents per share, in the 2010 quarter. Newmont reported adjusted net income, including one-time items, rose 18 percent to $445 million, or 90 cents per share, compared with $377 million, or 77 cents per share, last year. Newmont reported the average realized gold price for the second quarter was $1,501 per ounce, up 25 percent from the 2010 quarter, and the average copper price was $3.78 per pound, up 62 percent from last year.
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! " " " The Chinese may have a great ecoBack in the mid-1990s with gold nomic growth rate, but that’s not hard to around $365 an ounce, a friend and ana- do when you start off at a per capita lyst for a Swiss bank wrote a research income of $500 per year. The Chinese report for the bank titled “Gold’s 19th economy can grow at current rates for Nervous Breakdown.” The introduction the next century and still won’t match contained numerous other lyrics from U.S. per capita income (as long as the U.S. economy doesn’t drop off Rolling Stones’ tunes like “tumthe proverbial cliff). Plus, they bling dice” and “fade away.” have a much worse baby boom The reason for his bearish problem than we do, thanks to outlook at the time was the their one child policy. massive central bank sales that The Middle East has the were going on at the time, which opposite structural problem; it I have commented on before. has a huge proportion of its And, as most will remember, population under 25 and their gold lost about a third of its women are having babies and value in the next few years. their men have few jobs and are One point to make is that spending their spare time contrary to popular belief that John Dobra killing each other and us when gold prices respond to wars, natural disasters, and the like, this is only they get a chance. This is a region with true in the very short run. In the long run, extreme poverty and extreme wealth fundamentals like the value of major cur- from oil. This is a volatile mix — and not rencies, stocks, bonds, and other financial likely to change soon. These are huge structural problems assets are much more important factors that we will have to deal with for a long influencing the price of gold. I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve time. It seems that “wild horses” can’t seem heard or read an analyst say something to the effect that gold doesn’t follow the to drag politicians in developed countries laws of supply and demand. Call it my away from promising voters, apparently bias as an economist, but in the long run, “blinded by rainbows,” more of other everything follows the laws of supply and peoples’ money than they can possibly expect to get. Margaret Thatcher warned demand. As gold flirts with the $1,800 per ounce that the problem with the welfare state is level, the big overriding fundamental that eventually you run out of other peoissue is sovereign debt. That includes not ples’ money (she actually said “socialonly the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece ism,” but there is no real difference). and Spain), which we have written about Someone should remind the parliaments before, but now includes the big Kahuna of Europe, Japan and the U.S. Congress of — the United States. My hypothesis is that. After the U.S. debt deal in Congress in that gold has made its recent run up on the back of the U.S. debt ceiling impasse early August, markets went into their and that, once the impasse is resolved, umpteenth nervous breakdown. And, as the price will retreat to pre-crisis levels. nervous as that may make us, that is good But right now, investors are saying for gold prices. John Maynard Keynes famously called gold a “barbarous relic” “gimme shelter” and gold is the shelter. The problems discussed above are but that is not necessarily a bad thing structural, which means they are not when you are producing gold and live in going away soon. The Europeans, barbarous times. ——————— Japanese, and Americans have conJohn Dobra is director of the Natural structed welfare states that they cannot Resource Industry Institute and an afford. They also have significant demoassociate professor of economics at the graphic problems because of the post University of Nevada, Reno. WWII baby booms.
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CARLIN — Newmont Mining Corp.'s latest underground mining, development and exploration projects on the Carlin Trend with portals are painting a bright picture for the future. The Exodus Mine is now in production, the Pete Bajo Project will be in full gold production in the fourth quarter, miners will be going back to the Chukar Mine in the fourth quarter, and the Deep Star Mine is still in production, according to Joe Driscoll, mine manager over the Carlin underground mines. The Carlin underground mines he oversees are all those that don’t have shafts. The largest of Newmont’s underground mines on the Carlin Trend is Leeville, which is a shaft operation. “Exodus is expected to produce about 65,000 to 75,000 ounces per year for at least five years and provide a platform for further underground exploration,” said Brian Hill, executive vice president of operations, in Newmont’s second-quarter earnings teleconference. Driscoll said Exodus is “striving to be about a 1,100ton-per-day operation.” The mining method is long-hole stoping, and the
A haul truck heads out of the portal at Newmont Mining Corp.’s Exodus Mine now in production north of Carlin. The portal is in Newmont’s Lantern Pit. The sign marks when development work began, not full gold production. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
See EXODUS, page 26
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Exodus ... Continued from page 25 high-grade ore is feed for Newmont’s roaster at Gold Quarry north of Carlin. “There are still exploration opportunities to the north in Exodus and we’re doing exploration drilling concurrent with mining,” Driscoll said. The Exodus portal is in the Lantern Pit, where there also is surface mining. Lantern mining covered the first Exodus portal, although that portal area was about to be open again in mid-August. “We’re one blast away from the first decline,” said Matt Haney, general foreman for Exodus. Lee Page, the chief engineer for the Carlin underground operations, said once another 40-foot bench is taken out during the open-pit mining, “that basically opens up the original decline.” Newmont put a vent raise down into Exodus from a bench in the open pit to provide extra ventilation, and Haney said the surface and underground people worked together to be sure the pit See EXODUS, page 27
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The Pugmill Systems Inc. pug mill that serves Newmont Mining Corp.’s Exodus underground mine is situated in Newmont’s Lantern Pit. The pug mill mixes backfill. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
Exodus ... Continued from page 26 mining didn’t collapse the Exodus decline. Page said more than 24,000 feet of development had been completed at Exodus by the end of July. Driscoll said Pete Bajo is smaller than Exodus, but it could start with 500 tons per day “with hopes for expansion.” That expansion could come with the connection of Pete Bajo and the Fence deposit to Carlin East. Fence is a mineralized area between Pete Bajo and Carlin East. “We will join up with Carlin east by August 2012,” said Tim Sirotek, superintendent of Carlin underground operations. He said there is a lot of potential in the connection because “it’s virtually virgin ground” that hasn’t yet been explored. Sirotek said a drift also can connect to the Full House deposit that is considered part of Leeville. “The future looks bright for us,” he said. Pete Bajo’s average ore grade is 0.37 ounces per ton, Sirotek said. Small Mine Development is developing Pete Bajo, which has two portals in the Pete Pit. Mining ended in Pete last November. Sirotek said Pete Bajo will be in full production in October. Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
See EXODUS, page 28
William Greener of Spring Creek works on a Swick Mining Services diamond drill platform in August at Newmont Mining Corp.’s Pete Bajo underground operations.
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Exodus ... Continued from page 27 Joe Knaack, SMD’s superintendent at Pete Bajo, said SMD had 44 employees on site in mid-August but planned to step up to 54 people by early September. “It’s a good little project,” he said. Driscoll said the current mine plan is through 2018 for Exodus and 2017 for Pete Bajo, “but we’re cautiously optimistic” there will be more gold discovered to mine beyond those years. DEA out of Elko was installing a secondary escapeway in August at Pete Bajo, using raiser liners that are also known as cans. Ladders and landings for the escapeway are prefabricated. SMD also is mining the Deep Star underground mine that has its portal in the Genesis Pit, along in Newmont’s North Area, Driscoll said. The Chukar Mine shut down after a pit slide at Gold Quarry Mine in Newmont’s South Operations Area and during the remediation work that followed, but Newmont now plans to build a new access ramp and open a new portal for Chukar, Driscoll said. “We’ll get back into production in the second quarter of 2012,” Driscoll said. Newmont is back mining ore at Gold Quarry after the slide remediation. Miners at Chukar went to work at Exodus during the shutdown, Driscoll said. The Carlin underground mines under his management have 218 employees, including SMD workers. See EXODUS, page 29
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Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Scott Syme, left, and Dave Eklund work on 20-ton haul truck in the mobile maintenance shop for Newmont Mining Corp.’s Exodus underground mine north of Carlin. Xtreme Cubes were used in the construction.
Exodus ... Continued from page 28 “We look at SMD employees as our own employees,” Driscoll said. He said the Exodus and Pete Bajo mines are the first to use pug mills from Pugmill Systems Inc. to produce cemented backfill for the underground mines. “This is a very innovative machine we brought to the mining industry,” Driscoll said. Haney said the pug mill at Exodus combines cement, fly ash from Newmont’s TS Power Plant and crushed aggregate. The Pete Bajo pug mill is up but not in use, yet. The pug mill can process 300 tons per hour, and it is automated so truck drivers can hit a button and fill up. Newmont also took a new step with construction of the Exodus shop out of Xtreme Cubes from Northern Nevada Equipment. “The cube design is much like Lego blocks on a 10foot by 20-foot design, bolted together,” Driscoll said. The cubes are portable so they can be used again, said Brian Andreozzi, maintenance superintendent for the Carlin underground operations. The cubes were put together to provide office space, as well as shop space, and the 55-foot by 80foot structure has a soft cover of long-lasting canvas. The small, four-bay mobile maintenance shop went into operation in March.
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Tim Sirotek, superintendent of Newmont Mining Corp.’s Carlin underground operations, explains the Pete Bajo mine project to Steve Spitze, regional director of risk management for Newmont.
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Tammy Tomten cleans the catwalk on Newmont Mining Corp.’s pug mill for the Exodus Mine. The pug mill mixes backfill for the underground operation north of Carlin.
Photos by Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Cody Chambers of Ryndon explains how DEA out of Elko is installing vent-raise liners in mid-August at Newmont Mining Corp.’s Pete Bajo underground operation north of Carlin. Allen Sabey of Elko, also with DEA, is in the background.
James Butts of Spring Creek operates a drill on a Swick Mining Services diamond platform at Newmont Mining Corp.’s Pete Bajo Mine north of Carlin.
30 MINING QUARTERLY, Elko, Nevada FALL 2011
Brian Andreozzi, left, maintenance superintendent for Newmont Mining Corp.’s Carlin underground mines, talks about the innovative Exodus shop to Matt Murray, senior external communications representative for Newmont.
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VALMY — High gold prices mean more mining at the Marigold Mine. “For us at our low grades, the gold price makes a huge difference,” said Duane Peck, general manager of the mine Goldcorp Inc. operates in Humboldt County. When the gold price is high, Goldcorp can afford to mine the lower grades of ore that otherwise would be left in the ground, but that also means more exploration drilling and new mining plans. “We designed the pits around higher grades, then the gold prices go up, so we have to do more exploration to expand the pits,” Peck said. “The mine life is 10plus years in front of us.” Two exploration rigs were drilling in early August at the mine also one-third owned by Barrick Gold Corp., but there were three operating earlier, and Peck said Marigold hopes to pick up another drill for delineation drilling. “We’ve had a series of pits all headed to the north, and we’re doing lots of drilling to try to tie things together. The gold price is good but it means we need a lot of geologic and asset information,” he said. The new drilling is aimed at filling in the gaps between existing pits, in other words, to add to gold resources and reserves for future mining. Marigold is mining in the Basalt 7 phase and now Target 2 and backfilling continues at the Antler Pit. “We’re stripping at Target 2 and starting to get into ore,” Peck said. “Target 2 will be a source of ore in 2012 and 2013, and Basalt should be nearly finished in the fourth quarter of this year.” Target 3 is “on the near-term horizon,” said Matt Zeitlow, environmental manager. Target 1 was mined in 2000-2001 and is nearly backfilled. Marigold production Goldcorp reported Marigold produced 26,600 ounces of gold in the second quarter at a total cash cost of $764 per ounce, compared with production of 16,900 ounces in the 2010 quarter at a cost $686 per ounce in the 2010 quarter. That was for Goldcorp’s two-thirds share of the operation. Peck said a new leach pad should be
ABOVE: A Hitachi hydraulic shovel loads a 190-ton Caterpillar haul truck in early August in the new Target 2 mining area at the Marigold Mine at Valmy. The photograph on the Mining Quarterly cover is of another shovel loading a 320-ton truck in Phase 7 of the Basalt Pit. LEFT: Larry Burkhart of Battle Mountain, a long-time miner who said he has been back at the Marigold Mine eight years, touches the screen of the new Modular Mining monitor in a 320-ton Euclid haul truck. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
See MARIGOLD, page 32
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Marigold ... Continued from page 31 completed by mid-September so Marigold can start stacking ore on the new pad that is adjacent to the existing pads to the east, and Gold Canyon Mining and Construction is doing the earthwork on the project. AEG installed the liner and Vector is doing the quality control. Marigold places all the oxide ore directly from the pits to the leach pads without crushing. Another project nearing completion is expansion of the processing plant with the addition of another train of carbon columns “in order to maintain or increase production,” Peck said. The new train increases solution movement 25 percent to counter lower grades. Gold Canyon also was building a new pregnant pond, the fourth, at the processing facilities in early August. Pregnant ponds hold solution that contains gold. Marigold additionally was just awaiting service and fire water work at the new shop to begin using the roughly $9 million building that includes four bays for the dozen 320-ton Hitachi haul trucks. The mine also has eight smaller Caterpillar trucks in the fleet. “The shop will be done in September,” Peck said. Marigold built a new 400,000-gallon water tank on the hill above the shop and planned to add a potable water system with a 1,000gallon tank, as well. Along with the higher gold prices have come higher costs, and Peck said those costs have had a significant impact, especially the higher prices for diesel fuel. See MARIGOLD, page 33
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Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
The new four-bay truck shop at the Marigold Mine in Humboldt County is ready for use in early August, except for the systems for water service and fire coverage. The project cost roughly $9 million.
Marigold ... Continued from page 32 Prices also have gone up for tires, steel, cyanide and more, and the spring flood in Memphis, Tenn., had an impact on cyanide supplies from a DuPont plant there, he said. Marigold employees Marigold’s employee numbers are increasing, with nearly 300 employed in August, and Peck said the hope is to hit 305 by the fourth quarter. The turnover rate, meanwhile, “has been pretty flat the last three or four years.” “We’re probably up 35 from the beginning of the year,” he said. “We’re still recruiting for engineers and maintenance people primarily.” Peck said Marigold restructured the maintenance department, increasing the welding crew, added a field workshop crew to work on equipment on site, added a couple more trainers and more planners. William Lawton, human resources manager at Marigold, said professional positions are still hard to fill, as are skilled trades, while pay for qualified workers has climbed “at a steep pace” in contrast to the frozen pay in certain other industries. “We’re not seeing that in mining,” he said. Marigold doesn’t need to advertise for haul-truck drivers because there are plenty of applications, but finding the maintenance people, for example, is much harder, and a major recruitment problem is the housing problem, Lawton said. “Rentals are hard to find,” he said. See MARIGOLD, page 34
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
The Marigold Mine operated by Goldcorp Inc. at Valmy is in the process in early August of expanding its carbon columns that process gold solution.
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Marigold ...
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Jarold Eastman, operations manager at the Marigold Mine operated by Goldcorp Inc. at Valmy, watches equipment at work in early August on a new leach pad. AEG is installing the pad liner and Gold Canyon Mining and Construction is doing the earthwork.
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Continued from page 33 Marigold is west of Battle Mountain and east of Winnemucca, and employees live in both communities. Lawton received a Seven Seals Award for Employer Support of Guard and Reserves for efforts to employ veterans, and he flew from Reno to the Naval air base at Fallen in June to receive the award. The mine added a new training simulator that is used to train haul truck drivers, new and experienced, Peck said. Marigold also is installing a Modular Mining dispatch system on its trucks and mining equipment. “We will be finished with it in the fourth quarter. We’ve already got monitors in the trucks. We’re getting the driver used to using the monitors, and we’re collecting information,” Peck said. “We hired four people as dispatch supervisors.” Jerod Eastman, operations manager, said the dispatch system is safer and more efficient. There are 65 contractors on site, and there were interns at Marigold during the season, university students with an interest in mining. The four interns for the summer were: Roseleigh Taylor, who will be attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall as a senior and plans to major in mechanical engineering; Tyler Stokes, a major in environmental geology at UNR; Jeff Neville, who is majoring in geological engineering at UNR; and David Thompson, who is majoring in mine engineering at UNR. Marigold also had summer students working for the company, dependents of employees. They didn’t all work at the mine, however. See MARIGOLD, page 35
Marigold ... Continued from page 34 Marigold provided help for the Jacob’s Well teen center in Battle Mountain, the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the Winnemucca Convention Center and the Safe Haven Rescue Zoo. “So the children of our employees are getting good summer jobs and helping the community at the same time. It’s the second year we’ve done it,” Peck said. Marigold placed four students in the community and four at the mine this summer but had 17 summer students last year. Marigold is the only Goldcorp operation in Nevada, but the company is in a joint venture with Barrick to develop the Arturo Project near the Goldstrike Mine north of Carlin. Goldcorp is 40 percent owner of Arturo, which is awaiting U.S. Bureau of Land Management approval. Goldcorp earnings Goldcorp announced adjusted net earnings of $420 million, or 52 cents per share, for the second quarter, an increase of 111 percent over the 2010 quarter, with high gold prices a key factor in the earn-
ings surge. Adjusted net earnings totaled $199 million, or 27 cents per share, in the second quarter of last year. Goldcorp also announced that reported net earnings from continuing operations excluding one-time accounting items totaled $489 million, or 61 cents per share, down from $524 million, or 71 cents per share, in the 2010 quarter. Vancouver-based Goldcorp also reported revenues rose 62 percent from the 2010 quarter to $1.3 billion on gold sales of 606,400 ounces. That compares with revenue of $815,000 on gold sales of 597,100 ounces in the 2010 quarter. The average realized gold price was $1,516 per ounce in the 2011 quarter, up from $1,208 per ounce last year. “Goldcorp remains well-positioned to benefit from near-record high metals prices. Effective cost containment is blunting the effect of industry cost pressures, and continued strong by-product metal prices have led to improved cash costs for 2011,” Goldcorp President and Chief Executive Officer Chuck Jeannes said in the earnings report.
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
This overview shows the new truck shop in the foreground at the Marigold Mine at Valmy, the carbon column expansion work to the right and the new leach pad in the background at right. He said, however, that Goldcorp was dealing with mill and tailings problems at Peñasquito in Mexico, forest fires near the Musselwhite Mine in Canada and
delays at the Pueblo Viejo joint venture with Barrick in the Dominican Republic that will impact gold production in the second half of the year.
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Royal Gold CEO optimistic on market ! "
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ELKO — Royal Gold Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Jensen said he sees high gold prices “supported for quite some time” as investors look to gold as an alternate asset in the current economic climate. “These are really unprecedented times we’re living through. Two years ago, we were worried about the solvency of banks. Now, we are worried about the solvency of countries,” he said. Jensen said high unemployment and economic concerns mean interest rates will stay low and currencies will remain weak, which “sets the stage for a very attractive environment for gold investment.” “At the same time, we’re seeing inflation in emerging nations like China, so they are also looking at gold,” he said. Royal Gold has roughly 70 percent of its royalties in precious metals, and “we’re really in a gold-building period with two assets in the wings — Mt. Milligan and Pascua-Lama,” Jensen said in an Aug. 16
telephone interview. He expects the Mt. Milligan Project operated by Thompson Creek in Canada and Barrick Gold Corp.’s Pascua-Lama on the border of Argentina and Chile to become Royal Gold’s largest royalty generators in the future. Those major projects are two of many in the company’s portfolio that includes mines, projects and proposed projects in what Jensen calls “investment-grade countries” that go beyond the company’s start in U.S. projects. “Our total property count now stands at 184, including 36 producing properties and 21 development properties,” Jensen said. Royal Gold looks well into the future when acquiring royalties, he said, pointing to the recent option the company acquired for a royalty on Seabridge Gold’s KSM Project in Canada that is a very large, unique project with gold, silver and copper deposits that will take years to develop, if Seabridge decides to do so. Royal Gold acquired an option to purchase a 1.25 percent net smelter return
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royalty on all of the gold and silver production from the KSM (Kerr-SulphuretsMitchell) Project by buying $30.7 million Seabridge shares. Jensen estimated gold reserves at all the properties subject to the company’s royalty interest increased 7 percent during the fiscal year to 83.9 million ounces and that silver reserves increased 4 percent to 1.4 billion ounces. Jensen said the company has a team to manage all the royalties but still has 21 employees total, which he said is a “very efficient business model” that shelters the company from the costs of building mines and the rising costs of mine operations. “We provide investors with exposure to gold, but without the capital costs. We don’t have that negative,” he said. Royal Gold is seeing higher profit and revenue on higher prices for precious metals. Net income Net income rose 106 percent in the quarter ending June 30, the fourth quarter in the company’s fiscal year, to
$21.7 million, or 39 cents per share, on record royalty revenue of $59.3 million, up from $10.5 million, or 21 cents per share, a year ago on royalty revenue totaling $40.7 million. Net income for the fiscal year was $71.4 million, or $1.29 per share, up from $21.5 million, or 49 cents per share, in the 2010 fiscal year, and revenue for the year totaled $216.5 million, up from $136.6 million in the 2010 fiscal year. The average gold price in the fiscal year was $1,369 per ounce, up from $1,089 in the 2010 fiscal year, according to the earnings report. Royal Gold increased its royalty interest in the Pascua-Lama Project in the fiscal year. “At Pascua-Lama, Barrick has stated they expect costs to increase to between $4.7 billion and $5 billion. A portion of this increase is associated with maintaining the mid-2013 production schedule, which is beneficial to us as a royalty holder,” Vice President of OperSee ROYAL GOLD, 37
Royal Gold ... Continued from page 36 ations William Zisch said in an earnings teleconference. “Additionally, Barrick has reported that revised gold production estimates for the projects have increased from 775,000 ounces to 800,000 to 850,000 ounces in the first full five years of operation,” he said. Royal Gold also announced that Thompson Creek stated that the Mt. Milligan project is on schedule for completion in the fourth quarter of 2013. Looking at the quarter ending June 30, Zisch said gold prices rose 9 percent and silver prices rose 21 percent, but other metal prices “trended down 2 percent to 10 percent.” Nevada royalties The top royalty-paying Nevada properties in the quarter ending June 30 were Barrick’s Cortez Mine in Lander County, Quadra FNX Mining’s Robinson Mine near Ely and Newmont Mining Corp.’s Leeville Mine north of Carlin, according to Royal Gold’s earnings report. Revenue from Cortez production subject to the royalty totaled $4 million on
35,633 ounces of gold in the quarter, compared with $3.1 million in royalty revenue on 38,613 ounces of gold in the 2010 quarter. Royal Gold’s royalties at Cortez are on the Pipeline portion of the operation and don’t include the newer Cortez Hills surface and underground operations. Royalty revenue from the Robinson Mine in the fourth fiscal quarter totaled $2.9 million on 8,213 ounces of gold and 22.3 million pounds of copper, compared with $3.2 million on 19,797 ounces of gold and 26.6 million pounds of copper in the 2010 quarter, according to the earnings report. “At Robinson, Quadra continues to work on improving production as they had reduced the congestion in the Ruth Pit and continue development of the secondary access ramp into the pit. Access to higher grade material at the bottom of the pit and additional haulage capacity are expected to increase production in the second half of the year,” Zisch said in the teleconference. Royal Gold also cited Quadra FNX’s recent announcement it reduced its 2011 annual guidance for gold production to
“Our total property count now stands at 184, including 36 producing properties and 21 development properties.” — Tony Jensen Royal Gold president and CEO 25,000 to 30,000 ounces from 45,000 to 50,000 ounces due to lower grades and recoveries in the first half of the year. Revenue from Leeville totaled $2 million on 75,272 ounces of gold, down from $2.3 million on 92,463 ounces of gold in the 2010 fiscal year. Zisch said Newmont’s month-long shutdown of Mill 6 at Gold Quarry during the quarter affected gold production numbers from Leeville. Revenue producers Teck’s Andacollo Mine in Chile produced the most revenue for Royal Gold in the quarter ending June 30 — $12.2 million — on 10,833 ounces of gold, with a 75
percent net smelter royalty. That compared with $3.8 million on 4,145 ounces of gold in the 2010 quarter. Voisey’s Bay operated by Vale in Labrador, Canada, brought in $11 million in revenue based on 39.6 million pounds of nickel and 5.3 million pounds of copper, compared with $3.3 million in revenue on 15.9 million pounds of nickel and 7.3 million pounds of copper the prior year. Goldcorp Inc.’s Penasquito Mine in Mexico provided $7 million in royalty revenue on 64,867 ounces of gold, 4.9 million ounces of silver, 41.2 million pounds of lead and 60.3 million pounds of zinc, compared with $2.5 million in revenue in the 2010 quarter on 41,690 ounces of gold, 3.6 million ounces of silver, 23 million pounds of lead and 32.9 million pounds of zinc. Cortez and Robinson follow Penasquito on the list of top royalty providers, with the Mulatos Mine operated by Alamos in Mexico sixth on the list with $2.8 million paid in royalty revenue to Royal Gold on 37,477 ounces of gold, compared with $2 million on 32,986 ounces of gold last year.
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Metallurgist hopes to skydive in 50 states ! "
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WINNEMUCCA — Jennifer Eller flies her own plane and skydives for fun and in competitions when she isn’t working at Newmont Mining Corp.’s Twin Creeks Mine. “I fly all over the U.S. Last week, I was in 11 states and skydived in 10 states,” she said in late July at the airport in Winnemucca, where she keeps her 1969 Cessna 182 Skyplane. “I’ve put 90 hours on the plane since April.” Eller said her goal is to skydive in all 50 states. The 11 states on that July weekend included Nevada, Idaho, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas. Where she flies on days off depends upon where there is good weather, Eller said. “I am up in the air as much as I can.” On the ground, the 26-year-old metallurgist is operating shift foreman at the Sage Mill, and she said “it’s a cool job to run the world’s two largest gold autoclaves.” She was primarily a blending metallurgist at Twin Creeks before taking the foreman job, which she said is more challenging. “I like shift foreman. It’s more active, but here is more need for me in metallurgy,” Eller said, adding that she expected to be back working as a metallurgist during the mill downtime for maintenance. Eller chose the metallurgy route at the Colorado School of Mines, where she was the only woman on the school’s wrestling team. That accomplishment came after she qualified to try out for the Olympics after competing in the Women’s National Wrestling League while in high school in Englewood, Colo. “I won three years in a row. That gave me qualifications for the Olympics tryouts,” she said, but she decided to go to college instead of join the Olympic team. “It was a tough choice.” At the Colorado School of Mines, Eller, whose last name was Corns at that time, was the first woman in the NCAA, and she beat out young men to make the wrestling team. She said the problem was she only weighed 110 pounds and the lowest
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Jennifer Eller, a pilot, skydiver and metallurgist, sits in the cockpit of her Cessna 182 Skylane at the Winnemucca Airport. She works at Newmont Mining Corp.’s Twin Creeks Mine. weight category for men’s wrestling at the college level is 125 pounds. “I didn’t win any matches,” said Eller, who explained she learned to wrestle because neighbor boys were in wrestling and taught her. “I competed for a whole season, then I went to music. I got a full board scholarship.” She played the saxophone. Here’s what the Rocky Mountain News said about Eller on May 1, 2003: “Jennifer Corns can't wait to wade in the athletic waters where few girls have dared to tread. In fact, she has no fear of getting in over her head. “Corns, a senior at Englewood, wants to wrestle on a college men’s team. She is going to have that opportunity thanks to Colorado School of Mines wrestling coach Steve Kimmel. “Corns, who also runs sprints for the Pirates' track team, has been wrestling
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for only the past two years. But she has taken to the sport, and this past season she was a member of the boys wrestling team at Englewood.” These days, Eller doesn’t compete in
wrestling, but she said she still fights — in martial arts. Eller said she also enjoys rock climbSee PROFILE, page 40
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Profile ... Continued from page 38 ing, scuba diving and snowboarding and cooking. “Actually, when I retire, I would like to open a restaurant,” she said. Right now, however, her eyes are on the sky. “I started skydiving about the same time as I started flying, about three years ago,” Eller said. “I’ve always wanted to fly. Nobody in my family flies, but I fell in love with an airplane.” She said she took a few flying lessons when she was 13, but the cost was too high. After going to work for Newmont, she was able to take to the air again. “I went to work here and bought an airplane,” Eller said. “Mining makes it possible.” She said she took flying lessons where she could find instructors, including going to Boise and Reno, so she could earn her private license. Now, she also has her commercial rating and is working on her instrument rating. Eller said she has thought about getting into commercial flying and would need 250 hours to be a co-pilot, but “I enjoy where I work, and the economy the
way it is, gold is the place to be.” She said she started at Newmont in 2008 as a metallurgist, her second job out of school. She also worked for Nucor Steel in Alabama. Sometimes she jumps out of her own plane, when she has a co-pilot to take the controls, and she skydives with friends. Eller said she also skydives at the Winnemucca airport when she can get a local pilot to take her up. “I travel the world and skydive all over. I also do ground launching or speed flying, which is basically when you run off a cliff with a canopy,” Eller said. “Skydiving is what I live for.” That skydiving isn’t just normal skydiving. She also does free fall, belly flying, speed flying, artistic flying and canopy formation flying. “Usually those who do skydiving competitions have 1,000 jumps or more. I have a little more than 200,” Eller said. She also reported that she has been in two airplane crashes, but they weren’t in her plane and “not my fault.” Even on her short days off from her 12hour shifts, she said she usually flies to Wendover, Cheyenne, Wyo., or Salt Lake
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Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Jennifer Eller, operating shift foreman at the Sage Mill at the Twin Creeks Mine, holds ribbons she won during wrestling competitions in high school.
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Jennifer Eller gathers her parachute after a jump.
City, and she said she will ask friends if they want to come with her and share the cost of $60 an hour to fly the plane. “If I fit four people in and split the cost, it’s cheaper than driving,” she said. Eller doesn’t just spend money on flying. She bought her mother, Janice
Corns, an older Mustang convertible for Mother’s Day. She also said she owns a couple of houses she rents out, and she earned money in college working in construction, the smaller jobs to put finishing touches on houses.
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WINNEMUCCA — Allied Nevada Gold Corp.’s Hycroft Mine keeps expanding and plans for even more growth as exploration drilling finds more gold and silver ore. “What’s really fun about it, is that when we started in 2008, it was a threeyear project with around 140 people, and we planned to do some exploration drilling and see what happens,” said Warren Woods, vice president and general manager of the mine that has a long history but Allied Nevada brought back to life. “Now, three years later, it’s now a 10year project at 240 employees, on the way to 300, and the sky’s the limit where we are going,” he said. “When we started, we had construction signs at the gate, and they are not coming down.” Along with the 240 employees at Hycroft, there were roughly 200 contractors on site in late July as work was nearing completion on a new, four-bay, 25,000 square-foot shop, a new leach pad, an expansion of the Merrill Crowe processing plant and Komatsu was assembling two 320-haul trucks on site. At the same time, mining continues in the Brimstone Pit and the much smaller Cut 5 Pit, while five drilling rigs were busy with exploration and definition drilling. All of the ore goes to leach pads, mainly as run-of-mine material, although Hycroft has purchased a crusher and is studying the economics of crushing more ore before placing it on the pads. “When we’re crushing silver, recovery goes up dramatically,” Woods said. Allied Nevada reported Hycroft produced 22,783 ounces of gold and 93,221 ounces of silver in the second quarter, and the outlook is for the mine to produce between 115,000 and 125,000 ounces of gold this year. Mine expansion Hycroft also is planning for an expansion of its oxide-ore production once the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approves the project. The BLM’s Winnemucca office is working an environmental impact statement on the expansion that also looks at the potential for additional expansion into mining deeper sulfide ore.
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“The scoping period ended on June 29, and comments were received from the public and other government agencies,” said Kathleen Rehberg, the BLM’s Hycroft project leader. Once the expansion is approved, Hycroft plans to add two more leach pads, two more Merrill Crowe facilities, new waste-rock dumps and expand mining in the open pits, Woods said. Meanwhile, Allied Nevada expects to complete an initial feasibility study on the potential of mining and processing sulfide ores, and Woods said the study could be ready in September. “If there is a positive outcome, we will start looking at what it takes, and at that point the company can apply for a change in the permit,” he said. The company explained the potential of the sulfide project at scoping meetings BLM held before starting the EIS, Woods said. The oxide ores to be mined can be processed on leach pads and through the Merrill Crowe plants, and they are located above the water table. The plan basically doubles disturbance to 5,200 acres of public and private land and “is pretty straightforward,” he said. Production will reach roughly 250,000 ounces of gold a year with the oxide expansion, and the company approved spending $212 million for this expansion. Processing sulfide ore will require a mill, and Woods said one of the alternatives under consideration is to process the ore into a concentrate that could be processed at one of the autoclave facilities in the state. The company also is looking at a railroad spur from the nearby tracks so concentrate could be carried by train. The spur also would bring in freight. “This is a few years down the road and part of the EIS proposal. We’re engaged right now in the design,” Woods said. If Hycroft’s future includes the sulfide expansion, the mine may produce 600,000 ounces of gold a year and 20 million ounces of silver, he said. High gold, silver prices High gold and silver prices, especially silver prices, gave Allied the boost to look at expansion and to take a closer look at the silver mineralization at Hycroft, which Vista Gold mined until low gold prices led to a shutdown in 1998. “When silver was a $5 to $6 an ounce, Vista didn’t sample or assay for it. Of
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Darrin Basaraba of Battle Mountain, who works for Komatsu out of Elko, is helping assemble a 320-ton haul truck in late July at Allied Nevada Gold Corp.’s Hycroft Mine in Humboldt County. course, with the price of silver up, we started paying attention to it and have actually targeted some of the exploration drilling for silver,” Woods said. The current ratio is 4 to 1 silver to gold, and Hycroft sells silver as a byproduct, producing more than 30,000 ounces of
silver a month, he said. “At some point, we might be a half and half mine,” Woods said. That’s half gold and half silver. Rigs in 2010 did infill drilling for oxide See HYCROFT, 42
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Hycroft ... Continued from page 41 gold deposits, infill drilling for silver and metallurgical, technical and hydrology drilling, along with true exploration drilling, he said. There were 10 drilling rigs on site last year, and five this year. “We sent three rigs to Hasbrouck,” Woods said, referring to Allied Nevada’s exploration project five miles south of Tonopah The drilling under way is between the Brimstone Pit, the Vortex deposit and Cut 5, and “someday they will tie together,” Woods said. Boart Longyear, Timberline and TonaTec have drills on site. Past drilling at Hycroft didn’t go deep enough to find the gold and silver deposits that current drilling has found. “They stopped about 100 feet from mineralization,” Woods said. New equipment The capital authorized for the oxide expansion includes the purchase of new haul trucks and new shovels, and five of the new 320-ton Komatsu trucks are in use now, while two were being erected in late July. CHECK tons, and Hycroft is slated to get nine new 320ton haul trucks next year. The fleet also includes six older, 200-ton Komatsu trucks. The new haul trucks cost $4.5 million. New equipment also includes an Atlas Copco Pit
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Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
A $7.5 million shop that is big enough for new 320-ton haul trucks is under construction in late July at the Hycroft Mine in Humboldt County. Agate Construction is doing the project. This view shows the truck-shop administration offices. Viper blast-hole rig that still was being assembled in late July but nearly ready to be commissioned. Woods said Hycroft ordered three Hitachi shovels, but the earthquake and tsunami in Japan pushed deliveries back.
He said the first 5500 Hitachi was at the port ready to be shipped out of Japan when the tsunami hit in March. “There were are on March 10 looking for machines. See HYCROFT, page 43
Hycroft ... Continued from page 42 We found a used one at a coal mine in Washington, and bought it and refurbished it,” Woods said. That shovel is a 3500, with a 24-yard bucket. The 5500 has a 38-yard bucket. Hitachi expected to ship the first one on July 30, and the second machine should be out of the factory in September, the third, in March of next year, Woods said. Hycroft also has two smaller shovels operating on site and two loaders. If Allied Nevada develops a mine at Hasbrouck, the smaller equipment will go there for the start-up, according to Woods, “so we really didn’t mind getting the 3500.” The $7.5 million shop is due for completion in September, with Agate Inc. as contractor. Agate has offices in Elko, Reno and Arizona. The old shop will be used, as well. The leach pad under construction this summer is on private ground to provide extra space for ore. The new leach pad is on the site of the first pad at Hycroft in prior mining days. Woods said the pad was closed in the 1980s, and the leached material will provide a good base over the 3 million square feet of liner to be laid. He said the old material is being sampled to see if there is gold left to leach again. Hunewill out of Winnemucca was doing the earthwork in late July on the pad. The $1.7 million Merrill Crowe plant expansion brings capacity from 3,500 gallons per minute to 5,000 gallons per minute. The Merrill-Crowe process is a separation technique for removing gold from a cyanide solution. The expanded plant was commissioned on July 27, after an addition was completed and a new filter press, clarifier and zinc tower added. The new press brings the number to four, Woods said. Schmueser & Associates Inc., which has an office in Winnemucca, did the refinery work. Woods said there is a still an older carbon system for processing gold that is used on site. Before Allied Nevada acquired the Hycroft Mine, the mine was on care and maintenance and residual leaching after Vista Gold shut down the mine in 1998 when gold prices fell. Reno-based Allied worked out a deal with Vista Gold in 2007 and also acquired Carl Pescio’s proper-
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
An Hitachi hydraulic shovel the Hycroft Mine bought used while awaiting delivery of new shovels in late July loads one of the new 320-ton Komatsu haul trucks in the Brimstone Pit.
Audrey Bradshaw works on a pump in the expanded Merrill Crowe ore processing plant in late July at Allied Nevada Gold Corp.’s Hycroft Mine in Humboldt County. Ross Andreson Mining Quarterly
See HYCROFT, page 44
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Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
A Caterpillar loader fills a Komatsu haul truck in the smaller Cut 5 open pit at Allied Nevada Gold Corp.’s Hycroft Mine in Humboldt County.
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
The Hycroft Mine in Humboldt County is constructing a new leach pad in late July at the site of a 1980s pad. Hunewill Construction out of Winnemucca is doing the earthwork.
Hycroft ... Continued from page 43 ties that extend the land package. The infrastructure was already in place and permits in place for the start up that cost roughly $70 million, according to Woods. The mine is near the border with Pershing County, and Woods said much of the planned new construction and leach pad construction will be in Pershing County.
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“There are about 50,000 acres out here. It’s a very good land position,” Woods said. Exploration and earnings Allied Nevada is spending millions of dollars on exploration at Hycroft and the Hasbrouck property because of the potential, according to President and See HYCROFT, page 45
Hycroft ... Continued from page 44 Chief Executive Officer Scott Caldwell. The company spent $9 million on exploration in the second quarter, and he said he believes the exploration is important despite the impact to net earnings. “I fully understand what it will do to earnings,” Caldwell said in a teleconference on the second-quarter earnings report. Allied Nevada announced net income for the quarter of $3.6 million, or 4 cents per share, down from $20.8 million, or 26 cents per share, in the 2010 quarter. The company reported it sold 20,293 ounces of gold and 85,092 ounces of silver from the Hycroft Mine in the second quarter to bring in revenue of $33.6 million, down from $37.1 million in the 2010 quarter. That compared with gold sales of 29,560 ounces and silver sales of 63,859 ounces last year. The average realized gold price for the 2011 quarter was $1,504 per ounce, up from $1,216 an ounce in the 2010 quarter. The average realized silver price was $36 an ounce, up from $18 an ounce in the second quarter of 2010. The adjusted cash cost was $459 per ounce for the second quarter, compared with $408 per ounce last year, according to the earnings report. Allied Nevada reported it stepped up exploration at Hasbrouck to access the high-grade Saddle Zone discovery and follow up on additional targets identified at the property in the first quarter.
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Blast-hole drilling and mining are under way in late July in the Brimstone Pit at Allied Nevada Gold Corp.’s Hycroft Mine 52 miles west of Winnemucca.
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46 MINING QUARTERLY, Elko, Nevada FALL 2011
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ELKO — Nevada Mining Association President Joe Crowley expects a good turnout for the association’s convention at Harvey’s in South Lake Tahoe Sept. 810 that last year drew 480 people. “We’ll probably cross 500 participants,” he said in mid-August. “We’re seeing people year over year coming again and more people from the supply chain. As the mining industry is growing, businesses providing goods and services to the mining industry are growing.” Crowley said the keynote speaker will be Peter Hart, “a renown pollster who has a great sense of public opinion on various issues and changes in public opinion across the country. I am looking forward to hearing him.” The convention begins on Sept. 8 with a meeting of the board of directors at Harveys, according to the association schedule. The Sept. 8 schedule also includes meetings of the Safety Committee and the Suppliers Committee, a pool-side
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reception and a Party Poker Charity Event. A golf tournament will take up most of Sept. 9 at the Edgewood Golf Course, and the tournament is sold out. The alternative is a tour of Lake Tahoe’s Thunderbird Lodge National Historic site, according to the schedule. The day ends with a dinner and reception to welcome new Nevada Mining Association Chairman Bruce Hansen at the Edgewood Clubhouse. Hansen is chief executive officer of General Moly. The Sept. 10 events include a Regulatory Roundup with Wyatt Andrews, western district manager of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, and Ken Meyer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, as slated speakers. Hart of Pollster will speak after the roundup, and a Legislative Roundtable. The convention will end with the Safety Awards Luncheon, when awards will be presented for 2010 safety success. The honors will include three Special Consideration Awards presented to: Edward Tomany for many years of dedication to the safety of Nevada miners; Vic
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Peterson for his contribution to mine rescue; and J.S. Redpath for five years of underground mining with no lost-time accidents. The general manager honor goes to Dave McClure, who manages Barrick Gold Corp.’s Bald Mountain Mine in White Pine County. The other individual awards include: Mine manager or superintendent: Steve Yopps, Barrick Goldstrike; Jody Squires, Great Basin Gold, Esmeralda; Jack Henris, Newmont Mining Corp., Carlin operations; and Mark Ward, Newmont, Midas operations. General superintendent or middle manager: John Rodriguez, Barrick Goldstrike; Jerod Eastman, Goldcorp, Marigold Mine; Dan Skinner, Newmont, Mill 6. Supervisor: John Worthen, Barrick Goldstrike; David Groves, Newmont, Phoenix Mine; Randy Moore, Newmont, Twin Creeks Mine. Trainer: Robert Ziegenbien, Goldcorp, Marigold, and Dan Wootton, Kinross Gold Corp., Round Mountain. Safety professional: Scott Cochrane, Barrick Gold, Cortez; Robert Crommelin,
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Great Basin Gold, Hollister; Terri Yost, Newmont Mining Corp.; Jeff Herzog, Newmont, Twin Creeks. Safety manager: Karen Bishop, Newmont’s Phoenix Mine. Non-supervisory trainer: Monica Standaert, Goldcorp, Marigold; Mike Swatman, Newmont’s Twin Creeks; and Jesse Danner, Goldcorp, Marigold. EMS/mine rescue: Andrew Smith, Goldcorp, Marigold; Chancy Campbell, Newmont’s Phoenix; Tim Spangler, Newmont’s Twin Creeks; and Cody Allen, Newmont’s Leeville Mine. Non-supervisory: Bruce Krajewski, Barrick Gold, Cortez; Jesse Fox, Barrick Gold, Cortez Mine; Chet Parker, Great Basin Gold, Hollister; Dave Newman, Newmont’s Gold Quarry Mine. The awards for safe mining operations include: Open pit-large: Newmont’s Phoenix Mine, first place; Newmont’s Twin Creeks Mine, second place; and Kinross Gold’s Round Mountain Mine, third place. Open pit-medium: Barrick Goldstrike See MINING, page 48
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NWMA convention in Sparks ! "
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ELKO — With months to go before the Northwest Mining Association Convention, there’s a waiting list for the trade show and the lineup on luncheon speakers is being finalized. The annual convention returns Nov. 28-Dec. 2 to John Ascuaga’s Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, after being held in Spokane, Wash., last year. Laura Skaer, executive director of the Northwest Mining Association, said she is expecting between 2,300 and 2,500 people to attend the convention. “We’re getting excited,” she said by phone from the association’s Spokane headquarters. “We’re the second largest mining convention in the U.S.” The theme of this year’s convention is “Rocks to Riches ... and meeting the challenges between.” Skaer said the two luncheon speakers haven’t been finalized yet, but a couple of invitations have been sent out. “One of the speakers will be someone who will talk about the state of industry and its outlook,” she said. Technical session chairmen are in the process of putting papers together for half-day sessions that usually include five or six talks, Skaer said. Plans are in the works for a half-day Nevada prospectors forum, which she said is usually one of the most popular sessions. “It will focus on projects and properties that exploration folks are working on that may not be advanced to the stage that everyone’s talking about them,”
Skaer said. Another session with focus on mining in British Columbia. Half-day growth company sessions will give businesses the opportunity to make a 20-minute presentation with an investor-related focus, Skaer said. Also, many of the sessions during the convention will focus on environmental issues such as reclamation and challenges involving water. “Sessions will look at how the United States has become increasing dependent on foreign sources of strategic and critical minerals,” Skaer said. The sold-out trade show will feature 240 vendor booths. Skaer said more than 70 companies are on a waiting list. “A lot of them are repeat exhibitors, from mining companies to consultants,” she said. The trade show opens Nov. 30 and will runs from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. that day. A welcoming reception for the convention is also scheduled for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. that day. On Dec. 1, the trade show will be open from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 2. Skaer said the majority of exhibitors are focused more on the exploration side of the industry, since the convention is the largest gathering in the country of the hardrock mining exploration sector. In addition to sessions and the trade show, “they’ll be lots of networking between the major producers and the junior mining companies,” Skaer said. For more information or to register, visit www.nwma.org.
Mining ... Continued from page 47 roaster operations, first place; Newmont’s Mill 6, second place; and Jipangu International’s Florida Canyon Mine, third place. Open pit-small: Newmont’s Lone Tree Mine, first place; Great Basin Gold, Esmeralda, second place; and Coeur d’Alene Mines’ Rochester Mine, third place. Open pit-nonmetal: EP Minerals, Clark Mill and Mine, first place; EP Minerals, Colado, second place; and EP Minerals, Lovelock, third place. Underground-large: Newmont’s Lee-
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ville Mine, first place, and Barrick Gold Corp.’s Turquoise Ridge Mine, second place. Underground-medium: Newmont’s Midas Mine, first place, and Great Basin Gold’s Hollister operation, second place. Underground-small: Newmont’s Chukar Mine. Contractor: J.S. Redpath, Storm underground, and Ames Construction, Nevada operations. Both are first-place awards. Details on the conference are on the Nevada Mining Association website at www.nevadamining.org.
Robinson gains access to better ore ! "
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ELKO — Quadra FNX Mining Ltd. expects the Robinson Mine near Ely to produce between 105 million and 120 million pounds of copper this year, and the company reduced the estimate for gold production. The gold ounces are now expected to be between 25,000 to 30,000 ounces of gold, which is roughly 20,000 ounces below earlier forecasts. The Robinson operations in White Pine County are producing fewer gold ounces now that all the mining is in the Ruth Pit, Quadra FNX President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Blythe said. There was more gold recovery from the Veteran Pit, Blythe said in an earnings teleconference. “We expect some improvement going forward but not what we had at Veteran,” he said in an earnings teleconference. Robinson produced 21.2 million pounds of copper and 7,100 ounces of gold in the 2011 second quarter, com-
pared with 22.7 million pounds of copper and 14,700 ounces of gold in the 2010 quarter. Robinson should have a better second half of the year, Blythe said, now that mud has been removed from the bottom of the Ruth Pit a month ahead of schedule. This provides access to highgrade areas. According to the company, Robinson also has more flexibility with a new ramp in the Ruth Pit and a transfer of four haul trucks from Quadra FNX’s Carlota Mine in Arizona, where production dropped and costs rose in the quarter. Carlota decreased the mining rate to align costs with the production base, according to the earnings report. Quadra FNX’s chief operating officer, Michael Winship, said in the teleconference that Carlota laid off roughly 60 people, but some of them transferred to Robinson. Companywide, production hit 55 million pounds of copper and 27,000 ounces of gold and other precious metals in the quarter, compared with 54.8 million
ounces and 26,870 ounces of precious metals last year, according to the earnings report. Quadra and FNX merged in May of last year so the production increase for 2011 includes a full quarter from the Sudbury projects in Canada from FNX. Vancouver-based Quadra FNX also announced a 75 percent jump in earnings to $64 million, or 33 cents per share, in the second quarterly, helped by higher copper prices. The earnings for the 2011 quarter compared with $37 million, or 26 cents per share, in the 2010 quarter. “Our financial results were driven by an increase in production from the underground and open pit mines and a favorable copper price environment,” said Blythe. Copper prices averaged $4.15 per pound in the second quarter, compared with $.79 a pound in the 2010 quarter. The price fell below $4 a pound in recent market action, but Quadra FNX stated in its earnings report the company believes that copper market fundamen-
tals will remain strong, including supply challenges and urbanization of emerging economies, such as China. Production costs were up to $2.33 per pound in the 2011 quarter from $1.92 per pound last year, Quadra FNX reported. Higher commodity prices, such as for fuel, and lower gold production at the Robinson were a couple of reasons costs were up, Blythe said in the teleconference. Adjusted for certain one-time items, including a $24.6 million gain on the sale of Quadra FNX’s investment in Far West Mining, net income was $42.8 million, or 22 cents per share, in the second quarter, compared with $22.9 million, or 16 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2010. Quarterly revenue rose 76 percent to $298 million from $169 million in the 2010 quarter. Quadra FNX reported it continues to expect 2011 copper production of about 240 million pounds, but gold production is now expected to be 100,000 ounces, due to lower production from the Robinson.
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ELKO — Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. plans to start mining in September at the SSX-Steer underground complex at the Jerritt Canyon Mine north of Elko as one segment of a growth plan that also may include reviving surface mining. “I think we’re very optimistic. We plan big programs of growth in the next six months and then in 12 to 18 months,” said the Vancouver-based company’s new chief operating officer, Randy Reichert. He said SSX-Steer will ramp up to 800 tons of ore per day and reach 1,200 tons per day in the second quarter of next year. The first open-pit mining most likely will be in the SavalSteer region, according to Guy Simpson, general manager at Jerritt Canyon. “We’re examining all the pits. The economics have changed significantly,” Reichert said. “We’re doing a lot of drilling now.” The company’s eye is on Saval, West Generator, California Mountain, Winter’s Creek and Marlboro Canyon, all areas where Jerritt Canyon has mined in years past, and Simpson said in mid-August there were three reverse-circulation drilling rigs and one core rig on the property.
Corey Delta Constructors is building the foundation for the new ore dryer for the mill at YukonNevada Gold Corp.’s Jerritt Canyon Mine north of Elko. The foundation work was under way in mid-August. Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
See JERRITT, 52
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Jerritt ... Continued from page 51 Reichert said one goal is to find enough oxide ore at the pits to reopen the wet mill at Jerritt Canyon that was decommissioned in the late 1990s but still in place. Jerritt Canyon has been in operation since 1981. Gold production Meanwhile, Small Mine Development continues to operate the Smith underground mine at Jerritt Canyon and has roughly 50 people on site, Simpson said. “They are doing 1,200 to 1,250 tons per day and the ore is over 0.2 ounces per ton,” he said. Jerritt Canyon also is processing ore Yukon-Nevada purchases from Newmont Mining Corp. Newmont is delivering roughly 1,000 tons a day, Reichert said, but he said Yukon-Nevada’s goal is to “getting our own ore through the plant.” Yukon-Nevada reported gold production of 22,168 ounces in the quarter from the Smith underground mine, ore purchases and stockpiles, compared with 18,441 ounces in the 2010 quarter.
The company also reported it purchased 67,899 tons of ore from Newmont in the second quarter, netting 16,375 ounces after processing at the Jerritt Canyon mill. SMD delivered 53,150 tons containing 9,889 ounces of gold during the quarter, which was lower than in the first quarter because Jerritt Canyon was aligning mill operations with mining levels, Yukon-Nevada stated in its earnings report. Projects under way Jerritt Canyon is a busy place with the mining projects, construction projects and mill improvements. “This property is exciting and fun and has an opportunity to be successful again. I’ve spent a lot of my life up here,” said Mike Armuth, mining manager for Jerritt Canyon since early May. He said he worked 28 years at Jerritt Canyon in surface and underground operations. Armuth said one of his focuses is on
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See JERRITT, page 53
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Randy Reichert, left, chief operating officer of Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp., goes over a drawing of the new tailings pond and water storage facility under construction at the Jerritt Canyon Mine north of Elko with Michael Smith, engineering manager for Jerritt Canyon. In the background are the VT Construction vehicles parked during the lunch break on a mid-August day in the water storage area.
Jerritt ... Continued from page 52 hiring people for underground and surface operations, and he said he has “done a pretty fair job” attracting new and former Jerritt Canyon employees. Jerritt Canyon has roughly 200 employees, and Simpson said the plan is to be up to 250 people by the first quarter of next year. “There have been cross-the-board pay raises, and we will be very competitive to recruit quality people. We fully understand that to compete, we have to pay competitive salaries and benefits,” Simpson said. The first major project mine visitors see is the new tailings pond and water storage facility under construction. VT Construction out of Las Vegas is doing the earthwork and has roughly 70 people on site. Mike Smith, engineering manager for Jerritt Canyon, said in mid-August that the earthwork for both the tailings pond and water storage facility should be completed by November, but the water storage facility is the priority. “We want to commission the water
storage reservoir this year,” he said. “We need to manage the water.” Smith said the existing reservoir with a soil liner has leakage into groundwater, although the leakage is captured before it has an impact. The water is recycled for use in the mill, and the excess water is evaporated with 26 evaporators on site. The current tailings facility still has about 1.5 years of storage space, Reichert said. The first phase of the tailings facility will hold 4.5 million tons and have a three-year life, and the second phase will duplicate the first phase and the facility can be expanded later, Smith said. A winterization project at the mill already was under way in mid-August, with Corey Delta Constructors constructing the foundation for a new oredrying facility, and the major portion of the work was expected to begin in September. Simpson said the winterization project that will cost $10 million will eliminate frozen ores in the cold weather by moving the drying process to the begin-
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
An Aggregate Trucking truck pulls out after dumping a load of gold ore in mid-August on a stockpile at Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp.’s Jerritt Canyon Mine. The ore came from Newmont Mining Corp. operations. ning of the mill cycle and will include cyclones and a mercury scrubber that is in addition to the mercury controls at the final cycle of the process. The drying facility will be “located immediately after first-stage crushing,” Simpson said.
The mill’s roasters and carbon-inleach circuit will be shut down for first two or three weeks of September for annual maintenance and automation upgrades but can resume operation while See JERRITT, page 54
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Jerritt ... Continued from page 53 work continues on the winterization work that will include taking out the old system, according to Simpson. “We will install mobile crushers on a temporary basis,” he said. Reichert said the work won’t end there, but there will be additional upgrades in the mill later. “We’re putting a lot of money into this place,” he said. Financing in place Yukon-Nevada announced in mid-August it closed on a forward gold purchase agreement with Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch to raise $120 million for Jerritt Canyon. The agreement calls for Yukon-Nevada to deliver 173,880 ounces of gold to the bank over a 48month term, beginning with 1,000 ounces of gold a month for the first six months. The company earlier announced raising $60 million through a private placement and exercise of share warrants. Reichert said the company is looking at putting another $150 million into Jerritt Canyon within the next 18 months to two years, with the bulk of that in the next 12 months. Simpson said the company started looking at the expansion plans when gold was at $800 to $1,000 an ounce, and with the price at $1,800 to $1,900 an ounce, “we’re drilling hard and exploring hard to come up with
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Scott Warenski of Elko operates one of the new 100-ton Komatsu haul trucks at YukonNevada Gold Corp.’s Jerritt Canyon Mine 50 miles north of Elko. The trucks haul ore from stockpiles to the mill.
Adella Harding Mining Quarterly
ore bodies.” He said a key target is the Mahala Basin between the Smith and SSX mines. “We’re spending $12 million just in exploration
drilling this year,” Simpson said. “Another thing we’re doing is grade controls at the See JERRITT, page 56
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Jerritt ... Continued from page 54 older stockpiles with this gold price,” he said, explaining that there are more than 800,000 tons of stockpiled ore that was evaluated at $1,250 gold. “SSX is a highgrade gold mine for mill feed, and we will supplement with low-grade ores.” The mine also is developing a new mine fleet, with replacement of “very old, tired trucks” with three 100-ton Komatsu haul trucks, a Komatsu loader, grader and bulldozer for the surface operations, Simpson said. The haul trucks are bringing ore from stockpiles at the mine sites around the property to the mill. New underground equipment also is on order or just recently arrived. Armuth said there are three Sandvik haul trucks, one Sandvik 6-yard loader, two Atlas Copco jumbo drills and one Atlas Copco bolter, as well as a Normet transmixer truck and shotcrete sprayer. “We’ve done a lot of work putting the shops together. The SSX shop is ready for production,” Armuth said. He also said mechanics are rebuilding a Tamrock bolter.
The revival at Jerritt Canyon follows a shutdown in August 2008 when Yukon-Nevada ran into financial problems and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection was pushing for new mercury controls on the roaster, along with other environmental work. Yukon-Nevada later signed an agreement with the state, installed new mercury controls and began processing stockpiles and then contracted with SMD to mine Smith. Reichert said that “2008 was a difficult time, not only here but around the world,” but he said YukonNevada has the financing now and is convincing the investment community about the company’s future. Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. reported net income for the second Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly quarter totaled $22.9 million, com- A new Komatsu bulldozer is working on the ore stockpile for the mill at Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp.’s pared with net income of $4.5 million Jerritt Canyon Mine in Elko County. in the 2010 quarter. The income boost came from a Yukon-Nevada announced in July that ton. $36.6 million gain in the fair value of gold reserves at Jerritt Canyon as of Jan. 1 The reserves, the first update since share warrants recorded as derivative liaof this year total 717,000 ounces of gold 2007, are part of measured and indicated bilities, according to the earnings report. at an average grade of 0.164 ounces per resources of 2.54 million ounces.
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Sandvik expands in new Elko facility ! "
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ELKO — Sandvik Mining & Construction has a far reach that goes beyond northeastern Nevada. The company, a global business that began in Sweden and recently celebrated its 150th anniversary, has three fields, mining and construction, materials technology and tooling. The mining and construction subset of Sandvik group has been around for 12 years and now makes up nearly half of the whole group’s net profits, said David Gardner, president of Sandvik’s United States and Canada region. Sandvik is a presence in all of the underground mining operations in northeastern Nevada, said Steve Antonini, manager of the Elko branch. He said some of the most popular items used in this area for mining include drills and bolters for underground mining, as well as loaders and trucks. “Specifically for this area in mining, we supply anything dealing with rock excavation so it may be drilling operations, mechanical cutting operations, crushing and screening operations and it can be loading and hauling operations, so we try to cover the gamut,” said Paul Painter, the area manager in Elko. Safety is the company’s first priority, Gardner said. See SANDVIK, page 59
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Tom White, operator and trainer of underground mobile equipment for Sandvik, demonstrates an underground drilling machine using a simulator during the recent grand opening of the Sandvik facility on Alta Vista Drive in Elko. Ross Andreson Mining Quarterly
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Sandvik drilling rigs await shipping to mining locations in Nevada during the recent grand opening of the Sandvik facility on Alta Vista Drive in Elko.
Sandvik ... Continued from page 58 The company also is innovative in working to provide energy efficient practices in the machines used in both aboveground and underground mining operations. The company’s bolters are auto-diesel electric, meaning they can run on those two energy sources. The vehicles can be driven around the mine on the diesel fuel to a drill site where it can then be plugged in to the electric for the actual drilling, which Antonini said is the preferred way to run the bolters. Most recently diesel particulate regulations led the company to implement tier 3 engines into the its underground equipment. “There are basically tier 1, 2, 3 and 4 engines and Sandvik was on the forefront of getting a tier 3 engine in place and underground,” Antonini said. In some of the machines, he said they run an 80-20 biodiesel blend. The 20 percent is biofuel. “That’s a science that is evolving everyday and it’s something that’s been out for a few years, but it gets refined constantly,” Antonini said. Sandvik recently partnered with Volvo Penta Engines, which is close to introducing a tier 4 engine. Antonini said this engine should be ready for use by the middle of 2012. Sandvik opened a new building on 3.5 acres on Alta Vista Drive in Elko, with a grand opening celebration in early August. Although the U.S. and Canada region
has taken a hit in the past few years when the recession occurred and caused company layoffs and downsizing across the globe, Gardner said the company still made the investment in a new building in Elko. “Sandvik as a group was affected by the recession, but the board still approved this significant investment at the time when the lower level projects around were canceled, so I think that’s testament to Sandvik’s commitment to Elko that we went ahead with this; especially since we built this facility and we’re not leasing shows our commitment to the area, the industry and the community,” Gardner said. The 22,000-square-foot building is twice the size of the old building on Idaho Street with three times the yard space. Its new location features a larger warehouse, customer support and parts order desk, component repair center, as well as rig rebuild capability. Construction began in November of 2010 and was completed June 30 before employees started moving. Thirty employees work out of the new building. Antonini said the company plans to hire five more field service and shop service technicians by the end of 2011. Sandvik first came to Elko in the mid1990s. “Underground and surface mining brought us here and it’s what’s keeping us here,” said Painter. For information on Sandvik, call 7779178 or visit www.sandvik.com.
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General Moly, county work on ‘3M’ plan ! "
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EUREKA — General Moly is working with Eureka County on a water monitoring, management and mitigation plan that State Engineer Jason King ordered while awaiting publication of the draft study on the company’s Mt. Hope Project. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Battle Mountain District is preparing the draft environmental impact statement on the proposed molybdenum mine in Eureka County and expects the study’s release by the end of this year. “Issuance of the DEIS is expected in the next two to four months,” said Angelica Rose, who is the BLM’s project leader for Mt. Hope. General Moly hopes to begin development of a large mine with a 44-year mine life and roughly 400 employees once the BLM approves the project and the way is clear to use water rights for the operation. King approved the water rights in July, and his opinion included the requirement that Eureka County and General Moly work together on the monitoring, management and
mitigation plan. “The ruling speaks for itself. I felt comfortable with the decision we made,” King said in a July telephone interview. Eureka County Commissioners on Aug. 5 approved an appeal to district court, however, over King’s approval of the change in water rights usage from agricultural to mining for General Moly. Commission Chairman Leonard Fiorenzi said the commissioners approved filing an appeal by the Aug. 12 deadline but will later consider whether to withdraw the appeal. “We put it on the agenda for the second meeting in September to decide whether to withdraw the appeal,” he said. Fiorenzi said the county will continue to work with General Moly, the company planning to develop Mt. Hope, including on what is called the 3M plan. He said the county’s appeal will address several legal issues, but the county is concerned about potential impacts on water rights beyond General Moly’s water rights. “Our position is that the state engineer’s ruling is very solid,” said Bob Pennington, vice president of engineering and construc-
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tion for General Moly. “I’m optimistic the issues can be addressed before the district court hearing.” He said General Moly will continue talking with Eureka County on the county’s concerns about the water rights, he said in an interview in Eureka. He said he was optimistic all the issues could be addressed before the appeal goes to district court. Pennington said the water permits have been tied up in litigation twice, even though the state engineer and the BLM have said any impacts from use of the company’s water rights for mining would have minimal impact. “It’s been painful,” Pennington said of the water rights litigation and the lengthy permitting process with the BLM. “It’s difficult for a development company like ours.” The wait for BLM approval also has been hard on the company, he said. “We’ve done everything we could to move it forward. The completed baseline studies have been done since March 2010,” Pennington said. See GENERAL MOLY, page 61
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Mike Iannacchione, general manager of General Moly’s Mt. Hope Project in Eureka County, talks at a General Moly-sponsored community meeting and barbecue at the Eureka Opera House about a survey showing majority support for the project.
General Moly ... Continued from page 60 General Moly’s plan of operations for Mt. Hope was initially approved in 2006, and the process toward permitting has continued since that time. Pennington also said at an August open house and barbecue that General Moly hosted that the company will continue to reach out to people in the area to understand their concerns, look for solutions and be good neighbors. General Moly put on the open house to release results of a survey of residents in the region of Mt. Hope that showed 83 percent of those responding support the project. Mike Iannacchione, new general manager for the Mt. Hope Project, presented the survey figures. Roberta Dinwiddie of Eureka said at General Moly’s barbecue that she supports the Mt. Hope Project. “It’s good for the economy and for jobs. Kids will come back if they have a job,” she said. “I think it will diversify our economy a bit,” said her husband Bob Dinwiddie. They have lived in Eureka 25 years and earlier lived in Ely.
Earl Overholser of Eureka, manager of the local Al Park Petroleum branch, agreed the project would help the economy and create jobs. “My kids had to move out to find work,” he said. “As long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, I think it will be a good thing.” General Moly has had extra costs while awaiting BLM approval, including a fee for a delay in an equipment order and storage of equipment already purchased. General Moly has roughly $25 million in mill motors stored at the company’s Liberty Mine, the company’s potential molybdenum operation near Tonopah, SAG mill shells stored in Houston and main transformers stored at the manufacturer’s, according to Pennington. General Moly reported a $3.4 million non-cash write down in the second quarter that represented roughly 50 percent of a long-term deposit on mining equipment with the passage of a June 30, 2011, deadline for a firm purchase order. The company had placed an order for two electric shovels with P&H when it expected the Mt. Hope Project to be permitted in 2009, Pennington said. General Moly paid $6.8 million in 2008
against the contract to purchase the two shovels. The company stated in its secondquarter earnings report that it continues discussions concerning applying previous payments for the shovels to future orders, including the remaining $3.4 million tied to an order deadline of June 30, 2012. General Moly reported a net loss for the second quarter of $5.4 million, or 6 cents per share, compared with a loss of $3.2 million, or 4 cents per share, for the 2010 quarter. The Colorado-based company also announced a cash balance at the end of the 2011 quarter of roughly $59 million, up from $54 million at the end of 2010. General Moly stated it spent roughly $5 million in the quarter, including $2.1 million in development, engineering and equipment deposit costs for Mt. Hope, roughly $2 million in general and administrative costs and $900,000 in debt issuance costs tied to procurement of a Hanlong-sourced Chinese bank loan. When the bank loan is in place and required permits are received, the company reported it intends to close on
Hanlong’s tranche 2 equity sale for $40 million, bringing Hanlong’s share position in the company to 25 percent. Also when final permits are received, POS-Minerals Corp., a 20 percent owner of Mt. Hope, is anticipated to fund its final $56 million initial contribution, plus 20 percent of all the funds the company has spent on the Mt. Hope Project at that point. The company estimates this combined payment will be approximately $100 million and from that point forward General Moly will fund 80 percent of the Mt. Hope Project. POS-Minerals will fund 20 percent of the costs. Also, within nine months after the Mt. Hope project’s permits are received, Hanlong is obligated to procure a drawable loan from a Chinese bank of not less than $665 million, according to General Moly. During the remainder of 2011, spending levels will largely be tied to progress toward receipt of the Mt. Hope Project’s permits, not including a $9 million advanced royalty payment due in the fourth quarter under the company’s Mt. Hope lease, General Moly stated in the earnings report.
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P&H
MinePro looks to the future ! "
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ELKO — Diversity and the desire for growth are two of many elements that have led to P&H MinePro’s continued success locally and globally. Growth comes in many forms for P&H MinePro. Areas include actual growth of the Elko property, the moving of equipment into various locations and continual improvements and advancements in technology and efficiency. Regional manager Mike Ewing said the company is looking at expanding its operations at the west facility near the 298 exit off Interstate 80. According to Ewing, the local facility wants to expand within the next few years. P&H is owned by Joy Global Inc., which also recently purchased Continental Conveyor and Goodman-Hewitt. Ewing said the Elko facilities are able to service a variety of loaders, trucks, breakers and other equipment by a number of manufacturers; not just P&H. “Diversity is what helps separate us from others,” Ewing said. “It’s also what helps keep us alive when prices go down. We have a reputation in the industry that’s been built up over the years.” Aside from work with mines, P&H MinePro’s Elko shops will also do work with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, construction companies, ranchers and road crews. And P&H’s local office is turning out machinery that gets shipped to mines all over the world, including Africa and South America. Local welders have even been sent to China to perform maintenance on some equipment there. P&H supports seven mine
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Machinist Tony Wilson works on a 4100XPC electric shovel crawler frame on Aug. 17 at P&H MinePro’s west facility shop in Elko.
See P&H MINEPRO, page 63
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P&H MinePro’s regional manager, Mike Ewing, left, demonstrates the cab width on a 4100XPC electric shovel scale model Aug. 17 at the west facility office in Elko. At right, is sales manager Brandon Hendrix. Ross Andreson Mining Quarterly
Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
P&H MinePro sales manager Brandon Hendrix explains the staging process the company uses when constructing equipment. These gears were sent to Elko from the company’s Milwaukee plant. The gears are part of an electric shovel’s cable hoist system.
P&H MinePro ... Continued from page 62 operations in both Nevada and at the Bingham Canyon open pit mine near Salt Lake City. There are about 120 employees for the Nevada operations. For new projects in the works and coming up, Ewing said Salt Lake area employees have been busy overhauling equipment, including putting new cabs on two shovels re-skinning three. In November, P&H MinePro will assemble a new diesel drill at Bingham Canyon. Two electric drills are slated for next year there, as well as a 4500XPC electric shovel that’s being put together now. Ewing said P&H expects to be doing work at Barrick Cortez next year. P&H supports mine operations in Nevada at Barrick Goldstrike, Barrick Cortez, Barrick Bald Mountain, Round Mountain Gold, Newmont and Quadra FNX Robinson. In 2000, P&H moved from a leased building to the custom-built facility west of Elko. In 2005, there was a small expansion to delineate the welding area from the machine shop. In 2007, P&H acquired a shop on the east end of Elko
on Idaho Street for handling the balance of machine shop assets and personnel. The east shop, aside from welding and machining, also handles repairs on gear boxes, agitators and mixers, as well as some trucks and loaders. According to information provided by Ewing, in 2008 P&H invested more than $6 million to acquire a mill to increase machining capabilities along with an air purification system and upgrades to overhead bridge cranes. For innovation in design and technology, Ewing said P&H is looking into designing other sizes of shovels and drills to fill niche gaps that other competitors are trying to fill. A new style of dipper is being tested at Bingham Canyon. “In a year or so it could be something we could sell,” Ewing said. However, he noted at this time it appears that dipper works ideally with hardrock mining. Innovations in equipment also include improved ergonomics for electric shovel operators, who may work 12hour shifts. There is a track guard that See P&H MINEPRO, page 64
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Ross Andreson/Mining Quarterly
Machinists Cecil Cotten, standing, and Tyson Young use laser alignment to precisely set a bore. According to shop Manager Mitch Geyer, there is only room for a one five-thousandth of an inch tolerance.
P&H MinePro ... Continued from page 63 uses GPS to monitor how close a dipper gets to the track on a turn. If the dipper is in danger of striking or damaging the track, a computer automatically takes control of the operation to perform a corrective measure, Ewing said. In another development, a sensor monitors the leading edge of the dipper. If a tooth on the edge comes loose, the sensor identifies that and notifies the operator. The operator can then locate the tooth so it doesn’t end up going to the mill and causing further problems down the line. Safety has been a major concern for P&H MinePro. According to Brandon Hendrix, sale manager at the Elko office, the Nevada operation has gone five years without any lost time due to safety mishaps. This decreases down time for the company and possible delays for customers. He said adding to efficiency is a restructuring of the company’s staging processes. Knowing how an on-site job needs to be completed helps dictate what parts go to a site first so they can be assembled with efficiency.
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P&H MinePro is also known for its field service department. Field service Manager Jason Ashby said his department has 11 local mechanics and four electricians or service engineers. The mechanics works on a number of pieces of equipment; not just P&H equipment. The service engineers, however, tend to be specific to the systems utilized by P&H. The Prevail system, for instance, was developed by P&H to monitor equipment and help diagnose technical problems from remote locations as a way to cut down on downtime and the amount of time it might take an engineer on-site to find the problem. Going in with advance knowledge of the problem can speed the process to resolution, according to Ashby. But P&H’s works go beyond the industrial spectrum. Aside from providing local jobs for a major industry, Ewing said P&H MinePro also invests in communities by supporting charitable organizations. “We’re not going anywhere,” Ewing said. “We like it here. We are deeply engaged with our Elko community.”
Revett Minerals credits employees for turnaround ! "
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ELKO — Revett Minerals Inc. owes the success of its Troy Mine in the northwestern corner of Montana to the mine employees, according to President and Chief Executive Officer John Shanahan. “It really is a turnaround story. We finished up 2008 in the worse way,” he said, pointing to copper prices as low as $1.25 a pound and silver at $8 an ounce. “Faced with closure and layoffs, the workforce came together,” Shanahan said in a telephone interview in mid-August. He said the mine had 185 employees then, 195 now, and Troy was the last major employer in the area. The mine is roughly 20 miles from Troy, Mont. Workers offered to take pay cuts, to work longer hours, and they formed groups to save money, Shanahan said. The workers are shareholders, and he said that makes a difference.
“It’s amazing to work in an operation where employees are shareholders. It’s changed how we do things. The employees are extremely proud,” Shanahan said. The underground silver and copper mine produced 342,822 ounces of silver and more than 3 million pounds of copper in the second quarter, according to the earnings report. Revett reported quarterly revenues of $18.8 million, up 102 percent from the second quarter of last year, and the company based in Spokane Valley, Wash., reported net income of $7.9 million, or 23 cents per share. Higher copper prices in the range of $4 a pound and higher silver prices in the range of $40 an ounce helped boost revenue. “If the prices drop, we will get through it again,” Shanahan said regarding the See REVETT, 66
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A loader fills a haul truck in the cavernous underground Troy Mine operated by Revett Minerals in Montana near the Canadian border.
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Revett ... Continued from page 65 Troy Mine. Shanahan said the Troy Mine is a “large, cavernous mine” that allows even 150-ton haul trucks to go underground, and he said it is the “cleanest, less environmentally impacting mine.” Revett uses Troy as an example of why the company believes it can develop and mine the Rock Creek Project roughly 35 miles from Troy, Shanahan said. Troy crushes the ore and a flotation process turns it into concentrate that is taken by truck to Libby, Mont., to be put on railroad cars to a refinery in Mexico. Shanahan said there are no water issues at Troy, no acid issues and no degradation on the surface after 30 years of on and off operations. “This gives us the confidence to develop Rock Creek to some of the highest standards,” Shanahan said. Tony Jensen, president and chief executive officer of Royal Gold Inc., which holds a royalty on the Troy Mine, said Troy is “a nice, clean operation with a very small footprint.” The battle to permit Rock Creek has
been ongoing for years, and to take a “permitting shortcut” much of the controversy stems while allowing Revett Minerals from the fact that while the to go ahead with construction surface facilities will be outside of Rock Creek beneath the Caba wilderness area, the underinet Mountains Wilderness, ground mine would go under a according to the Missoulian, a wilderness area. Lee Enterprise newspaper, as is “Environmental groups will the Elko Daily Free Press. look at it as a big hole in the Now, the company will have ground. We’ve gone to great to obtain an individual dislengths to bring people to charge permit under the MonTroy” to show them what is tana Water Quality Act — which planned, Shanahan said. means a full opportunity for The U.S. Forest Service John Shanahan public review and input — issued a record of decision before construction can begin, approving Rock Creek in 2003, but envi- the Missoulian reported. ronmental organizations immediately “This decision is just common sense,” challenged the decision and years of litiga- said Karen Knudsen, executive director of tion followed. the Clark Fork Coalition, which brought Shanahan said Revett is now awaiting a the lawsuit along with three other conserdecision from the 9th Circuit Court of vation groups. Appeals after the Forest Service and Revett “To approve a huge copper and silver presented oral arguments in July. mine in sensitive bull trout habitat under The company also has to work on new the same abbreviated permit process that water-discharge permits after a district applies when you build a house next to the court ruling. interstate makes no sense at all,” Knudsen A Helena district court judge ruled in told the Missoulian. “Yet that’s what the July that the state of Montana was wrong state tried to do here.”
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Shanahan said Revett has the “perseverance to see this through. We’re going to get there. The science clearly shows its a clean operation.” He said with the success of Troy, Revett has breathing room to wait out the permitting process. Shanahan also said Rock Creek near the town of Noxon would create jobs and give the area an economic boost. The plan is to employ 300 people. Rock Creek is the largest undeveloped silver and copper deposit in North America, with an inferred resource of 229 million ounces of silver and 2 billion pounds of copper. Revett had its eye solely on Rock Creek when it acquired the project, but when metal prices started to go up a little in 2004, “we said, ‘why don’t we get Troy back in production. It will employ people and train people up and by then we can move everything over to Rock Creek,” Shanahan said. The company has been operating Troy for seven years now, although the operation originally was expected to have a four-year life, he said.
Coeur Rochester returns to mining ! "
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ELKO — Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp.’s Rochester Mine near Lovelock is mining again after several years in a mining shutdown and will be adding silver and gold production later in the year. “We have now resumed active mining and expect to generate additional silver and gold ounces in the fourth quarter from a newly constructed leach pad,” said Coeur’s new president and chief executive officer, Mitchell Krebs. Ore is being crushed and stacked on a new leach pad at Rochester, and Coeur stated in its second-quarter earnings report that the increased production from the new mining should increase Rochester’s production in the fourth quarter. During the second quarter, residual leaching activities at Rochester produced 333,400 silver ounces and 1,400 gold ounces, according to Coeur. This production is from earlier mining. Cash operating costs were $4.34 per ounce of silver at Rochester, net of gold by-product credit. Rochester has been in an expansion mode since receiving U.S. Bureau of Land Management approval for the project, and the predominately silver mine is still hiring. “As of Monday Aug. 15, CRI employees were 203, and we are still interviewing/hiring for various positions. We have about 103 contractors on site mostly associated with leach pad/conveyor construction activities,” See ROCHESTER, page 68
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Alfredo Paredes, left, Tate Morehead and Jacob Pritchard are part of a Coeur Rochester Mine crew that helped the Safe Haven Rescue Zoo. Morehead is a full-time Rochester employee and the others were summer students.
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Rochester ... Continued from page 67 Rochester General Manager Cindy Jones said. “Considerable upside potential remains at Rochester as we begin to see the impact of this initial 50 million-ton leach pad. We will begin to focus our efforts on recovering additional economic material from further exploration and development of the large mineral resource,” Leon Hardy, senior vice present of operations, said in a teleconference on Coeur’s secondquarter earnings. Don Birack, senior vice president of exploration, reported that drilling started in the second quarter on the LM and NWR targets to the northwest at Rochester and also at Nevada Packard. He said these areas have good growth potential. Coeur also reported that more than 200 million tons of additional mineral resources are located in the existing pit walls and represent a significant growth opportunity. Companywide, Coeur expects full-year production of between 19.5 million and 20.5 million ounces of silver and 240,000 ounces of gold, with higher production anticipated in the fourth quarter from Rochester, the San Bartolome Mine in Bolivia and the Martha Mine in Argentina. Coeur’s silver production in the second quarter totaled 4.76 million ounces, up 16 percent from 4.16 million ounces last year. The company also produced 60,656 ounces of gold,
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up from 23,124 million ounces in the 2010 quarter, before the Kensington gold mine in Alaska was in production. Coeur announced realized net income of $38.6 million, or 43 cents per share, in the second quarter, compared with a net loss of $50.7 million, of 57 cents per share, in the 2010 quarter. Adjusted net income was $58 million, or 65 cents per share, compared with an adjusted loss of $8.9 million, or 10 cents per share, last year. The Idaho-based company reported record net metal sales of $231.1 million, a record for the company, and 129 percent higher than the metal sales of $101 million in the 2010 quarter. The company stated the increase in sales is mostly due to record silver and gold production from Palmarejo in Mexico, gold production from Kensington, which wasn’t in operation in the 2010 quarter, and higher silver and gold prices. The realized average silver price of $39.11 for the quarter was a 111 percent increase over the 2010 quarter, and gold prices during the second quarter of $1,504 per ounce were up 28 percent over last year, Coeur stated in the second-quarter earnings report. “Our second-quarter performance reflects record high production and record low costs per ounce at Palmarejo, another consistent quarter at San Bartolomé, and steady progress at Kensington,” Krebs said in the earnings report.
Coeur Rochester helps Safe Haven Rescue Zoo UNIONVILLE — Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp.’s Rochester Mine near Lovelock came to the rescue of Safe Haven Rescue Zoo, which needed a firebreak to protect the growing facility. Coeur Rochester’s staff and equipment recently created a 100-foot firebreak, according to Lynda Sugasa, the zoo’s executive director. “Coeur Rochester employees Larry Dowd and Wayne Anderson arrived with a Caterpillar 16M motor grader and within one day created the 100-foot firebreak. Their contribution has now made Safe Haven ‘wildfire ready,’” she said in an email update. In addition, Rochester also donated the use of a John Deere 310J to expand the water lines out to all of the new enclosures, Sugasa said. “Tate Morehead, Alfredo Paredes and Jacob Pritchard worked an entire week on-site at Safe Haven to trench the three feet necessary to reach below the frost line and install the water lines that now reach all of the new enclosure areas,” she said. They installed roughly 1,000 feet of water lines, which provided water to Siberian tiger Lulu, African lions Kovu and Ifaw, new arrival cougar Max, as well as the bobcat and fox enclosures. The frost-free faucets were positioned to also provide water for future enclosures, Sugasa said.
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ELKO — The draft study of Great Basin Gold Ltd.’s Hollister underground mine project could be released in the next couple of months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Elko office. “We’re trying to get the draft out. Hopefully, we will get the draft out by October, at least that’s now the goal,” said Janice Stadelman, the BLM’s project leader for Hollister. Great Basin Gold has been producing gold from Hollister under permits for bulk sampling while awaiting BLM approval to become a full producer and to construct new facilities at the mine site in northwestern Elko County. “It’s been four and a half years since we submitted the amended plan of operations,” Great Basin Gold President and Chief Executive Officer Ferdi Dippenaar said in an earnings teleconference in mid-August, adding that project approval could come in six months. Hollister provided $49 million in rev-
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enue for the company in the second the ore body. quarter on record sales of 34,522 Burnstone had been on tap to proounces of gold equivalent, and underduce roughly 110,000 ounces this ground exploration and stope delinyear. eation drilling continued during the Dippenaar said in the teleconferquarter, according to the earnings ence that the new mine’s ore quality report. is better than thought, “but the time Great Basin Gold stated there was is longer than anticipated to get to record 45,000 feet of drilling, and the the mining blocks.” focus has been on completing drilling Great Basin Gold reported total on the Blanket Zone and southeast revenue for the second quarter was Gwenivere targets that will provide $57.3 million, up from $38.3 million data for an updated update of mineral in the 2010 quarter, and the comresources at Hollister expected to be pany posted an operating profit of released in September. Great Basin Gold Ltd. $6.34 million, compared with a loss Hollister is a high-grade under- This map and overview of the Hollister operations in of $5.87 million in the second ground project, and the ore from northwestern Elko County is in Great Basin Gold Ltd.’s quarter of last year. Hollister is processed at the company’s earnings presentation for the second quarter. Dippenaar said the company had Esmeralda mill near Hawthorne, where positive earnings, “although not at construction continued on an acid wash ground mine in South Africa, the com- the levels we planned,” because of the pany sold 40,411 ounces of gold in the difficulties at Burnstone. and carbon regeneration system. Great Basin Gold reported the mill second quarter, compared with 36,721 The company had a net loss after treated 22,237 metric tons of ore during ounces in the 2010 quarter. adjustments, however, of $1.06 million Great Basin Gold had expected more in the second quarter, compared with a the second quarter at a cash production cost of $611 per ounce of gold equiva- gold from Burnstone but had to cut its loss of $4.95 million last year. forecast for the year by nearly 50 percent lent. Great Basin Gold has offices in South With the combined production from to between 60,000 and 70,000 ounces Africa and Vancouver, and a Nevada Hollister and the Burnstone under- because of unexpected faulting within office in Winnemucca.
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Exploration companies look to Nevada ! "
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ELKO — High gold, silver and copper prices are enticing exploration companies large and small to put drill rigs to work in Nevada. “We are seeing a lot of people coming in the bond pool with notice-level operations,” said Doug Driesner, deputy administrator of the Nevada Division of Minerals, referring to the pool the division oversees for smaller companies needing to raise and post reclamation bonds. “We’ve got $1,800 gold now so it doesn’t take that much of it to be profitable,” he said. Driesner is completing the division’s annual exploration report, this one for 2010, so his figures aren’t available yet, but he said in mid-August that exploration spending is going to be up for 2010. “It’s projected to be even higher in 2011, and more geologists are engaged in exploration,” Driesner said. He also said mining claims are up despite the Nevada Legislature’s fee increase that was later shot down in court.
“The higher gold price is really driving that,” Driesner said. A large number of exploration companies are issuing announcements about projects this year from new ones to projects that are near the mining stage, such as Nevada Copper Corp.’s Pumpkin Hollow Project near Yerington. Nevada Copper plans underground and surface mining, and the company announced in early August it had raised more than $65 million to help develop the underground construction. The money also is for continuing exploration at Pumpkin Hollow, according to the company. Western Lithium USA Corp. reported in July that drilling expanded its lithium deposit at the Kings Valley Project in Humboldt County, and the company planned bulk sampling and construction of a demonstration plant yet this year. Then there is Comstock Mining Inc. that has brought an exploration project into bulk sampling status in the Comstock District near Virginia City — a project that has Virginia City residents concerns about new mining in the historic district.
Examples of the many companies and projects follows, but it is by no means a complete listing and doesn’t include the exploration drilling under way at the producing mines. ——— Victoria Gold Corp. hopes to explore underground at its Cove Gold Project south of Battle Mountain at the closed McCoy/Cove Mine. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is working toward completion of an environmental assessment on the project by the end of September, according to Tessa Teams, the Battle Mountain BLM’s project leader for Cove Gold. Victoria reported it has spent more than $12 million at the Cove Gold Project, completing the work commitments to earn a 100 percent ownership from Newmont Mining Corp. Victoria also has several other exploration projects in Nevada, including Big Springs and Jack Creek in Elko County, Relief Canyon near Lovelock and Mill Canyon in the vicinity of the Cortez Hills Mine and Santa Fe in Mineral County. ———
Midway Gold Corp. is working on a feasibility study for its Pan Project in White Pine County, and is drilling at Pan and the Midway Project in Nye County. The company also is actively drilling at Gold Rock, a project at the closed Easy Junior Mine in White Pine County, according to R.J. Smith, vice president of administration for Denver-based Midway. “It certainly helps to know gold prices are at this level,” he said as gold prices rose well above $1,800 per ounce. Midway also owns the Spring Valley Project in Pershing County that Barrick Gold Corp. is exploring under an earn-in option. “There are several rigs on the Spring Valley Project,” Smith said. ——— Miranda Gold Corp. has several projects under option in Nevada, including two with NuLegacy Gold Corp. — Red Hill and Coal Canyon — in the vicinity of US Gold’s Tonkin Springs property. The Vancouver-based company also has the Red Canyon Project adjacent to See EXPLORATION, page 72
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Exploration ... Continued from page 71 Tonkin Springs that Montezuma Mines Inc. drilling, according to Miranda. The Paz Project also is in the area, southwest of Tonkin and Red Canyon, and this project is under an agreement with Navaho Gold, an Australian company. “They expect to drill this year,” said Mike Jones, Nevada projects manager for Miranda, which has an office in Elko. Miranda also has two projects it expected to drill. Angel Wing is northeast of Montello, and the Big Blue Project northeast of Austin that is in a joint venture with Ramelius Resources, an Australian producer, according to Jones. ——— Columbus Gold Corp. has a number of projects in Nevada, including the Stevens Basin Project in Eureka County that Navaho Gold is exploring in a joint venture. The company’s projects with drilling under way or planned for this year in addition to Stevens Basin include: Weepah, 20 miles west-southwest of Tonopah; Eastside, west of Tonopah; Petes
Summit, 20 miles southwest of Austin; Browns Canyon, Eureka County; and Summit 14 miles east of Wells, in a joint venture with Agnico Eagle. Also, Guild Project, Nye County, with Sniper Resources; Overland Pass, White Pine County; Golden Mile, 43 miles northwest of Tonopah; Utah Clipper/Crestview, near the Cortez Mine; and White Horse Flats, 27 miles south of West Wendover, according to Vancouver-based Columbus. ——— West Kirkland Mining Inc. is drilling on its TUG property on the Long Canyon Trend in Elko County. The Vancouver-based exploration company is exploring TUG under an option with Newmont Mining Corp. and also has an option with Newmont for the nearby KB Project. West Kirkland and Rubicon Minerals Corp. entered into an agreement in June that will give West Kirkland an option to earn a majority stake in mineral rights Rubicon holds on the Long Canyon Trend. Rubicon’s mineral rights cover roughly
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351 square miles in the vicinity of Newmont’s Long Canyon Project in the Pequop Mountains between Wells and West Wendover. The agreement also allows West Kirkland to earn a 60 percent property interest in a portion of the Rubicon package on the Long Canyon Trend adjoining the KB and TUG properties, the companies reported. ——— NuLegacy Gold Corp. announced it has completed drilling the first two holes on the East Pediment portion of its Red Hill Prospect on the Battle Mountain-Eureka Gold Trend as part of an on-going 20hole drilling program. The 45-square-mile Red Hill Prospect is 15 miles southeast of Barrick Gold Corp.’s Cortez Mine. The company earlier reported it added a soil gas survey to the drill program at Red Hill on the Miranda Gold Corp. portion. NuLegacy Gold is a Reno-based exploration company focused on Red Hill, Coal Canyon on the northeast side of US Gold’s Tonkin Springs property and the
35-square-mile Wood Hills South Prospect in Elko County. Wood Hills South Prospect is on the newly emerging Pequop Trend, where NuLegacy expected to be drilling by the end of the summer. ——— Rye Patch Gold has drill programs at all of its key assets in Nevada, according to the Vancouver-based company. The majority of the assets are on the emerging Oreana Trend, including Wilco, Lincoln Hill and Gold Ridge in Pershing County, and the Garden Gate Pass Project is in Eureka County. The exploration company now has 1.2 million ounces of gold and gold equivalent in the measured and indicated resource category and 2.7 million ounces of gold and gold equivalent in the inferred category, according to Karen Davies, manager of investor relations for Rye Patch. The company also has 9.8 million ounces of silver in measured and indicated resources and 30.5 million ounces of silver in the inferred category, she said. See EXPLORATION, page 73
Exploration ... Continued from page 72 “The 2011 drill program focuses on adding to the existing resource base,” Davies said. ——— Pilot Gold is actively exploring its portfolio of 11 projects in Nevada. “Currently, our focus remains on drilling our four key Nevada projects — Regent, Brik, Viper and New Boston,” said Raena Dumas, manager of communications and investor relations. “Our Easter and Gold Springs 2 projects are being drilled by La Quinta Resources and High Desert Gold, respectively,” she said. Easter is subject to an earn-in joint venture with La Quinta and High Desert Gold is the 60 percent joint-venture partner on the Gold Springs 2 property. Dumas said that for remaining projects in Pilot Gold’s pipeline – Anchor, Cold Springs, Buckskin North, Baxter Springs, and Stateline — plans call for basic exploration work in preparation for future drilling. ——— Renaissance Gold Inc. has a large explo-
ration portfolio in Nevada and in August announced it entered into an earn-in agreement with Summit Mining Corp., a subsidiary of Sumitomo Corp., for the Spruce Mountain Project in Elko County. Reno-based Renaissance reported it has defined three areas prospective for gold exploration, called the North Target, South Target and Sprucemont. The company reported in early June that Eldorado Gold Corp. was working on drilling permits for Renaissance’s Buffalo Canyon Project near Ione adjacent to the Berlin Mine that produced gold in the early 1900s. Also, Renaissance stated that Liberty Silver planned to drill this summer at the Trinity Silver Project northwest of Lovelock, and Navaho Gold planned to drill later in the year at the Rose Mine near Eureka under an agreement with Renaissance. NuLegacy Gold Corp. is exploring Wood Hills South in the Pequop Mountains of Elko County under an agreement with Renaissance, and Golden Dory Resources Corp. is exploring the Reef Project south of Midway Gold’s Pan
Project in White Pine County. ——— International Enexco Ltd. continues exploration and added more land to its Contact Copper Project in Elko County near Jackpot. The company reported acquisition of 89,400 acres from Allied Nevada Gold Corp. to bring the land position to roughly 15,000 acres. Enexco also announced on Aug. 16 that it was terminating its exploration agreement with Nevada Exploration Inc. on the Hot Pot Gold Project in north-central Nevada to focus on Contact. Enexco is currently preparing a feasibility study on Contact. The Canadian company earlier announced that former Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons joined the company as a director and senior adviser. ——— Bravada Gold Corp. is drilling at its Wind Mountain gold and silver exploration project 99.5 miles northwest of Reno, which the company is advancing toward potential production. Bravada also completed this year’s
drilling at its East Manhattan gold project southeast of the Round Mountain Mine in Nye County, and the company president, Joe Kizis, said there remains good exploration potential at East Manhattan. The company, a member of the Manex Resource Group with an exploration office in Reno, also planned to begin core drilling in September at its newly acquired Quito Gold Project south of Austin. Bravada has 22 exploration properties in Nevada. ——— Timberline Resources Corp. is exploring on its 23-square-mile South Eureka property south of the town of Eureka, especially at the Lookout Mountain Project. The Idaho-based company reported a 30,000-foot drilling program at South Eureka is primarily focused on expanding and upgrading the mineral resource at Lookout Mountain. “We remain excited about the districtscale potential at South Eureka and look See EXPLORATION, page 75
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Exploration ... Continued from page 73 forward to reporting results from the two active drill rigs on the property,” Timberline Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paul Dircksen said in the company’s recent earnings report. Timberline also acquired the White Rock Project in northeastern Elko County this year. ——— Golden Dory Resources Corp. is exploring the Pequop South Project on the Long Canyon Trend in Elko County. The Newfoundland-based company stated the first phase of exploration work included geological mapping, rock-chip sampling and soil sampling over areas identified as high priority based on the 2010 soil survey results. Golden Dory reported a modified notice of intent was filed with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and plans called for drill testing to begin in the JT target area in August. The Pequop South property is southwest of Newmont Mining Corp.’s Long Canyon Project in the Pequop Mountains. Golden Dory may earn a 70 percent
interest in Pequop South from Newmont by spending $2.85 million on exploration and delivering a bankable feasibility study by August 2016. ——— ICN Resources Ltd. signed an agreement with two arm’s-length parties to acquire a property called the AWA Project east of the closed Sleeper Mine in Humboldt County. The company stated this acquisition will tie in with three other land holdings in the Sleeper area. Vancouver-based ICN also stated it entered into a letter of intent with Pacific Rim Mining Corp. for an option and joint venture of the Hog Ranch property in Washoe County. The Vancouver-based company additionally reported in August that exploration drilling on the Goldfield Bonanza Project identified new areas of mineralization. The company optioned the property in the Goldfield Mining District from Lode Star Gold Inc., a private company. ——— Orsa Ventures Corp. is optioning the
Ashby gold property in Nevada under an agreement with Bridgeport Ventures Inc. Under the agreement, Orsa can earn up to a 51 percent interest in Ashby northwest of Tonopah at an old mining site. Both companies stated that Ashby produced 9,000 ounces of gold between 1934 and 1937 and later produced several hundred of ounces a year in the 1980s and 1990s during small-scale mining. “We’re interested in advancing the project,” Orsa President and Chief Executive Officer Linda Thorstadt said. She said the rejuvenated company was looking at new projects in Nevada, “and Ashby jumped out.” The Vancouver-based company also has the Cold Canyon property near Lovelock and has just received permits to explore there, she said. ——— Evolving Gold Corp. is exploring in Nevada, with two rigs drilling at the Humboldt-Carlin Project on the Carlin Trend south of Interstate 80. The Vancouver-based company reported it also found gold mineralization in earlier drilling at the Jake Creek Project
east of Newmont Mining Corp.’s Twin Creeks Mine in Humboldt County. Another Evolving project in Nevada is the Boulder Valley Project two miles west of Newmont’s Genesis Mine and Barrick Gold Corp.’s Goldstrike Mine. ——— ARNEVUT Resources Inc. planned to expand exploration drilling at its Island Mountain Project in northern Elko County 15 miles east-northeast of Wildhorse Reservoir near Gold Creek. The Lakewood, Colo.-based company planned to drill up to 56 holes from 48 drill sites in the project area, based on an environmental assessment for the first drilling on the site, which has been drilled in the past. There also is historic mining in the area. The company also has the East Canyon Project 40 miles north of West Wendover. ——— Western Exploration Inc. is planning expanded exploration at its Wood Gulch Project in northern Elko County and continues exploration at the Doby George See EXPLORATION, page 77
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Exploration ... Continued from page 75 Project, also in Elko County. The Wood Gulch Project is roughly 64 miles north-northwest of Elko in the vicinity of the long-closed Wood Gulch gold mine where Barrick Gold of North America recently did additional reclamation work. Reno-based Western Exploration isn’t working around the leach pad, however, according to Glenn Davis, the project coordinator for the Forest Service that is permitting the project. Doby George is on private and Forest Service property and is a long-time Western Exploration project. ——— Paramount Gold and Silver Corp. is exploring at its Sleeper Gold Project in Humboldt County, including looking at processing the waste dumps from former mining at Sleeper. The company announced assay results from a drilling program on three separate waste dumps at the Sleeper Gold Project were better than expected. “The results from this sonic drilling program confirm the presence of potentially valuable gold grades within these sizeable and easily acceptable waste dumps,” Chief Executive Officer Christopher Crupi said. Crupi reported, however, that testing of the already-leached heaps didn’t show any resources worth reprocessing. Paramount acquired X-Cal Resources that had been exploring in the Sleeper area for years. ——— High Desert Gold Corp. reported in mid-August that its drilling program on the Cold Springs Project with Pilot Gold Inc. in Lincoln County found gold mineralization. The Colorado-based company stated it completed its earn-in with Pilot Gold, which will retain its 40 percent interest in the project near the Utah border. ——— Coral Gold Resources Ltd. has been exploring a number of years on its Robertson property in Crescent Valley. The Vancouver-based company lists its primary Nevada properties, in addition to Robertson, as Excluded, Norma Sass and Ruf, which all are in the south Crescent Valley region. ——— Redstar Gold Corp. announced in early August that Centerra Gold Inc. planned additional drilling at Redstar’s Oasis Project in southwestern Nevada.
Centerra plans to complete 8,000 to 10,000 feet of drilling this year, according to Redstar. “This drilling will help us better understand the large low-grade target at Oasis,” said Redstar President Scott Weekes. Redstar also has a number of other properties in Nevada, according to its website. ——— NV Gold Corp. reported in late July planned a 25-30 hole exploration drilling program at its Afgan-Kobeh Project in Eureka County that was expected to continue through mid-August. The drilling was focused on updated resources at the site 28 miles northwest of the town of Eureka. “Near-surface oxide mineralization and close proximity to infrastructure, together with the current gold price give this project excellent potential to host a lowcost, open pit, heap leach operation,” John Watson, president and CEO of NV Gold, said in an announcement on the drilling. ——— Mexivada Mining Inc. has exploration projects in Nevada and recently report it has resumed field geologic mapping and sampling at the Gold Jackpot property along the gold trend in the Pequop Mountains of Elko County. The company also has agreements with Spartan Gold Ltd. for the Poker Flats property in Elko County and the Ziggurat property. Mexivada also has the Goldstorm property. ——— Corvus Gold Inc. plans a second phase of drilling at its North Bullfrog Project near Beatty. The Vancouver-based company reported drilling results from the first phase confirm existence of a thick, continuous, largely oxide gold mineralization. “We are extremely pleased with these results, as they clearly demonstrate the presence of a major new gold system at the North Bullfrog Project, and we look forward to advancing our understanding of this exciting new Nevada discovery,” said Jeff Pontius, chief executive officer of Corvus. ——— Vancouver-based Dynasty Gold Corp. reported in August that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved a drilling permit for the Golden Repeat Project. The permit was conditional on bonding, which the company expected to post for the property 10 miles from Newmont Mining Corp.’s Midas underground mine.
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Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
David Thompson, a mine engineering major at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Roseleigh Taylor, who is attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall as a senior in mechanical engineering, look at a map at the Marigold Mine. The two summer interns recorded data on the cycle time for a loaded haul truck to reach the leach pad.
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Barrick Gold of North America President Greg Lang talks in early August at the Elko Convention Center to 100 summer interns from Barrick’s Nevada operations.
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ELKO — Gold producers brought interns from colleges and universities around the country to Nevada mines this summer as part of the ongoing recruitment process to fill professional positions in the mining industry. Barrick Gold of North America employed 100 interns with majors that will fit the industry in northern Nevada, “typically from mining schools,” said Dana Pray, recruiting manager for Barrick. “Really, you are here to learn, but many of you had some good projects and made contributions to the mines,” Barrick Gold of North America President Greg Lang told the interns as they gathered at the Elko Convention Center after giving presentations on those projects at the end of the season. He said in an interview before his talk that Barrick realized a few years ago when the company knew the industry would be growing again that Barrick needed to begin “a concerted effort to recruit, and it has paid off.”
The five schools with probably Barrick’s most interns for the season were Montana Tech, the South Dakota School of Mines, the University of Nevada, Reno, the University of Arizona and the Missouri School of Science and Technology, Pray said. Newmont Mining Corp. paid 49 summer interns to work at its Nevada mines in hopes that some of them will accept jobs with Newmont when they finish their education. “We like to call these internships a summer-long interview,” said Sheri Snyder, a university strategy specialist at Newmont’s North American headquarters in Elko. “A lot of interns then turn into fulltime employees. She made the comment at the Carlin Combined Schools earlier in the summer, when Newmont brought together interns at the Nevada operations and from Colorado headquarters for mine tours and a community service project. Newmont’s more than 30 interns at the Denver headquarters joined
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See INTERNS, 79
Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Newmont Mining Corp. interns dig a hole for playground equipment at the Carlin Combined School as part of a June 21 community service project. From left are: Taylor Ball, a student at the University of Kentucky; Jonathan Oravec of Butte, Mont., a student at Montana Tech; and Christian Hadley of Norway, a student at the Colorado School of Mines.
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Summer interns Jarrett Kemmerly and Megan Davis, both majors in mining engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, sit at their keyboards at the Round Mountain Mine in Nye County.
Interns ... Continued from page 78 the Nevada interns painting, weeding and installing playground equipment at the Carlin school. One of the interns, Kyle Pfitzinger of Fayetteville, Ark., said in Carlin that the internship is a great opportunity. He was at the Twin Creeks Mine in Humboldt County, coming from Missouri University of Science and Technology. “Newmont really treats its interns well,” said Clara Trippel, who was at the Phoenix Mine near Battle Mountain for the summer and goes to school at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich. This was the second year for a community service project for the interns. Last year, they worked at the Safe Haven Rescue Zoo east of Lovelock, Snyder said. The Round Mountain Mine operated by Kinross Gold Corp. in Nye County had 19 college interns in mining-related field this summer as part of its recruiting effort. “We hope to groom the interns, and they will come back full-time,” said Denise Carver, human resources manager at Round Mountain. “I like it at Round Mountain. The people are friendly,” said Jarrett Kemmerly, a senior at the University of See INTERNS, 80
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Julie Larson of Denver paints the playground border at the Carlin school as part of Newmont Mining Corp.’s community service project on June 21 for summer interns. Larson is a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder and interned with the human resources department at Newmont’s Denver headquarters.
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Interns ... Continued from page 79 Nevada, Reno, majoring in mining engineering. Goldcorp Inc. employed four interns for the summer at the Marigold Mine at Valmy, according to General Manager Duane Peck. Summer students Coeur d’Alene Mines’ Rochester Mine near Lovelock had 18 summer interns and summer students working at the mine that is in start-up work to go into full production. “Summer interns are either getting advance degrees or just graduated from high school and pursuing advance degrees,” Rochester General Manager Cindy Jones said in an email. Barrick and Newmont also put college students to work over the summer doing a variety of chores for pay. These were the children of mine employees who didn’t work in fields related to their majors so weren’t interns. Barrick hired 250 summer students to work at its Nevada mines, Pray said. Newmont’s intern program is separate from the company’s summer student
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Rendon Barlow, who attends Utah State University, practices at Barrick Gold Corp.’s Ruby Hill Mine for a presentation he would make the following day, Aug. 4, at the Elko Convention Center on what he did during his Barrick internship. program because the interns work in their study areas on projects related to their fields, Snyder said. Marigold also had summer college students working for the company.
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Adella Harding/Mining Quarterly
Jimmy MacPherson of Elko, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, answers questions at the Elko Convention Center after his presentation on his blast monitoring work for Barrick Gold of North America during his summer internship.
The dependents of employees didn’t all work at the mine, however. Marigold provided help for the Jacob’s Well teen center in Battle Mountain, the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the Winne-
mucca Convention Center and the Safe Haven Rescue Zoo, according to Peck. Marigold placed four students in the community and four at the mine this summer.
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ELKO — Organizers for the Joint Western Regional Mine Safety and Health Conference are expecting a good turnout for the Oct. 24-26 seventh annual event at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Henderson. “Last year, there were around 400 to 425 attendees. This year, we’re hoping to get close to 500 since we will be near Las Vegas, which is more accessible to Arizona,” said Shane Owens, chairman of the conference planning committee and a Newmont Mining Corp. employee. He said Joseph Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, spoke at the 2010 conference and is scheduled to be at this year’s event as a keynote speaker at 9:45 a.m. on Oct. 25, the official opening day of the conference. “We’ll have top notch keynote speakers starting off each day,” Owens said. “The conference is a great opportunity for different companies within the
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mining industry to soring his talk. share their best pracMain’s talk follows, The Joint Western tices in safety and and after his talk, Regional Mine Safety health. We do quality Bruce Huber, senior and Health Conference director of safety and presentations and keep the price low so people will be Oct. 24-26 at the health for Barrick Gold can afford to go,” he Corp., will speak. Green Valley Ranch said. His talk will be folThe conference also lowed by breakout Resort in Henderson. will include a vendor sessions featuring a exhibition, and Owens variety of topics resaid last year’s event featured 35 booths. lated to mine safety and health, “We’re hoping to get that again this according to the agenda. year,” he said. “A highlight is over 30 breakout sesA full-day Art of Safety Workshop sions,” said conference planner Joe Riney with instructor Gary Phillips of of the Nevada Mining Association, which Northwest Training and Development is is one of the convention underwriters. planned for Oct. 24, and there will be On Oct. 26, the first speaker will be alternative events that day — a golf tour- Lincoln Eldridge of SAFEMap Australia, nament at the Legacy Golf Club and tours who will talk about “Australian Vs U.S. of Cashman Equipment’s headquarters. Mining Cultures.” His talk will be sponThe day’s opening ceremonies will sored by Ash Grove Cement. feature a dedication and memorial for The presentation of regional Sentinels miners, followed by a keynote address by of Safety Awards will follow, and then Joe Corrie Pitzer, who will talking about Casper of Safety Services-NSSGA will “Safety Leadership — The Final Hurdle to speak on “Worker Safety in the Zero.” Newmont Mining Corp. is spon- Aggregates Industry.”
" ' The final keynote speaker of the day will be Neal Merrifield, MSHA’s administrator of the metals and non-metals division. He will provide an update, according to the agenda. The lunch that day will include a presentation of the Distinguished Mine Safety and Health Award and the Lifesaver Award. The Western Regional Mine Safety and Health Conference essentially covers the 16 states in the Rocky Mountain and Western districts of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration and attracts safety professions, mining industry leaders, government officials, miners and college students majoring in mining fields. “It is open to anybody,” Owens said, adding that last year’s record number of attendees include operators, technicians and top mine managers. “It’s grown really beyond safety professions,” he said. Those interested in registering for the event can go to the website www.mine safetyconference.org.
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Klondex advances Fire Creek Project ELKO — Klondex Mines Ltd. continues underground exploration at its Fire Creek Project in Lander County near the town of Crescent Valley and plans bulk sampling by the end of this year. The company started the exploration decline in late April and plans a 3,650foot decline to access Main Zone mineralization for additional resource evaluation and the bulk sampling. Small Mine Development is the mine contractor for the project. “This is an extremely exciting time for Klondex and Fire Creek, as an unprecedented level of exploration and development activity for the company is under way,” said Klondex’s new President and Chief Executive Officer Blane Wilson in a late-July announcement. Under permits from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, Fire Creek can extract and process up to 36,500 short tons of material per year with a maximum of 120,000 short tons over the five-year permit life. Klondex also is doing more surface exploration at Fire Creek, as well as completing surface facilities that include on-
site facilities for mine management and work crews. Klondex has a reorganized board and Wilson became CEO after the company faced a challenge leading up to its June 30 annual meeting. Klondex and K2 Principal Fund LP worked out a settlement agreement to end a proxy fight. K2 had proposed an alternate slate of officers to bring more experience to the board. The board of Vancouver-based Klondex is now comprised of the following: • Andre Douchane, who has experience in developing and managing mines in Nevada, including the Round Mountain gold mine, several projects for Battle Mountain Gold and Battle Mountain North America and Franco-Nevada’s Ken Snyder (Midas) gold mine. He is chairman of North American Palladium Ltd. and a director of Osisko Mining Corp. • Robin Goad, who is a professional geologist with 30 years of experience in the mining and exploration industries in Canada and internationally. He is president, CEO and a director of
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Fortune Minerals Ltd., a director of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Chamber of Mines and a director of Andor Mining Inc. • Warren Moysey, who was with CIBC for 28 years, with his last position as director and one of three bank presidents. He also held senior positions at financial institutions, including chairman and CEO of CI Mutual Funds Inc. He is an Independent Review Committee member for Toronto Dominion Asset Management Inc. and a director of a TDAM Mutual Fund. • William Solloway, who stepped down as CEO, but is continuing as board chairman. He is a barrister/solicitor and active investor overseeing family interests in mining, natural resource and other public companies. After a career in law, Solloway held management positions at Canadian Bechtel, Trans Mountain Pipeline and was a principal at Minbanco Corp., Camino Gold Mines and The Marshall Plan asset managers affiliated with CALPERS. • Kenneth Stowe, lead director. Stowe
has more than 35 years of mining industry experience. He was president and CEO of Northgate Minerals Corp. and the recipient of the Canadian Mineral Processor of the Year Award in 2006. Stowe earlier worked in corporate leadership roles at Noranda, Diamond Fields Resources and Westmin Resources/Boliden, and is a director of Hudbay Minerals Inc. • Chad Williams, who is a professional mining engineer and was an institutional equity analyst covering the gold and precious metals sector. He served as a senior gold analyst and ultimately head of investment banking at Blackmont Capital Inc. He is a director and former president and CEO of Victoria Gold Corp. and a director of Golden Valley Mines Ltd. • Wilson, who has more than 25 years of mining, gold refining and processing, permitting, water management, reclamation and construction experience, including at the Jerritt Canyon Mine north of Elko. Wilson also is COO of Golden Eagle International Inc.
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!" ELKO — Barrick Gold Corp.’s Goldstrike Mine rescue team No. 1 took the overall honors at the 25th annual Safety Olympiad. The Goldstrike team from north of Carlin had the most overall points from the competition at the University of Nevada, Reno Fire Science Academy east of Carlin on July 8 and competition on July 9 at the Elko Convention Center. The scenario played out at the convention center involved digging where there was a propane line and rescuing those in a pipeline trench after the accident. “One man received lacerations to the head and broke his right femur, and the surface man landed on his head and was half engulfed by loose material,” said Ivan Brown, co-chairman of the event that Round Mountain Gold hosted. The third victim was the backhoe operator, who didn’t appear to be seriously hurt. Second place overall went to Newmont Mining Corp.’s Twin Creeks Mine rescue team from Humboldt County, and Peabody Energy’s North Antelope Rochelle Mine out of Wyoming team took third place. Goldstrike No. 1, Twin Creeks and Rochelle were the top teams in the A flight, which was made up of the teams with the
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highest scores. The top B flight team was Newmont’s Phoenix Mine in Lander County, and Thunder Basin Coal out of Wyoming was in second place, followed by Peabody Energy’s Caballo Mine, also from Wyoming. The winners of the special awards included: • The Squires Award for the most overall points on Friday — Barrick Goldstrike No. 1. • The John Bunch Award for outstanding rescuer of the year — Chris Rodriguez, Barrick Goldstrike No. 1. • Skinner Award for trainer of the year — Fred Bitz, Barrick Gold’s Cortez Mine. • OJ Laughlin Award for team sportsmanship — Cloud Peak Energy from Wyoming. Brown also provided the names of the winning teams for the different categories in the events at the fire academy that involved a variety of accident scenarios: • Triage — Barrick Goldstrike Team No. 1, first place; North Antelope Rochelle Mine, second place; and Newmont’s Twin Creeks team, third place. • Fire — Barrick Goldstrike Team No. 1, first place; Newmont’s Carlin rescue team, second place; and Thunder Basin Coal, third. • Confined space (sewer) — Barrick
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A “victim” lies on the pavement as a mine rescue team and judges finishes an accident scenario during Safety Olympiad competion on July 8 at the University of Nevada, Reno Fire Science Academy east of Carlin. underground “Sheila’s rangers” team, first place; North Antelope Rochelle Mine, second place; and Thunder Basin Coal, third place. • Confined space (water truck) — Newmont’s Phoenix Mine team, first place; Newmont’s Twin Creeks team, second place; and North Antelope Rochelle Mine,
third place. • Hazmat — Barrick Goldstrike No. 1, first place, North Antelope Rochelle Mine, second place, and Newmont’s Carlin operations, third place. • Rope — Cloud Peak, first place; Newmont’s Twin Creeks, second place; and North Antelope Rochelle Mine, third place.
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Mining gold At Marigold Adella Harding/photo