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Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. announced plans for the company’s Pebble copper-molybdenum-gold deposit. Amount the items the company intends to work on include the US Environment Protection Agency’s proposed pre-emptive regulatory action under the US Clean Water Act and preparation of the project’s initiate federal and state permitting under the US National Environmental Policy Act. The company also indicated it was continuing efforts to find a partner to aid in advancement of the project.
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Redstar Gold Corp. announced completion of its exploration program at its Unga gold project near Sand Point. The company focused its efforts on delineation of new drill targets at the Shumagin, Empire Ridge, and Apollo-Sitka Mine prospects. The company collected 272 soil/ talus and 325 rock samples over exposed bodies of silicification at Orange Mountain, silicified and mineralized structures located between Orange Mountain and Shuma-
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gin, and exposures of multi-phase breccias and additional structures at Shumagin. The Shumagin prospect is characterized by multi-episodic gold-silver bearing quartzadularia-rhodochrosite breccia bodies that occur within structurally controlled dilation zones along the +1,200-meter long Shumagin Scarp. High-grade gold-silver mineralization is open at depth within the main breccia body at Shumagin. Multiple dilation zones and coincident gold-silver bearing breccia bodies exist along strike of the Shumagin Scarp and remain untested. At Empire Ridge, the southwest extension of the historic Apollo gold mine, the company plans to conduct detailed structural mapping and drill targeting.
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Interior Alaska
Kinross Gold announced year-end 2015 and second half 2016 results from the Fort Knox mine near Fairbanks. For 2015 the mine produced 401,553 ounces of gold at a cost of $629 per ounce. The mill processed 13,446,000 tonnes of ore ranging in grade from grading 0.64 to 0.87 grams of gold per tonne (gpt gold). Mill recoveries averaged 83%. During 2015 the mine placed 25,218,000 tonnes of ore ranging in grade from 0.26 to 0.29 gpt gold on the valley leach facility. The mine
also announced year-end revised resources, including proven and probable reserves of 147,318,000 tonnes grading 0.40 gpt gold (2,022,000 ounces). Measured and indicated resources were 95,822,000 tonnes grading 0.50 gpt gold (1,423,000 ounces). Inferred mineral resources were 14,824,000 tonnes grading 0.50 gpt gold (221,000 ounces). For the first half of 2016, the mine produced 185,021 ounces of gold at a cost of $753 per ounce. Production increased in the second quarter of 2016 compared with the first quarter as a result of higher mill throughput and recoveries. Cost per ounce in the second quarter of 2016 increased compared with first quarter 2016 and second quarter 2015 primarily due to higher costs associated with waste mining. Overshadowing these operational results was the July 23, 2016, pouring of the mine’s 7 millionth ounce of gold. The mine poured its first ounces in 1996 after going to production with a resource of just over 4 million ounces. Twenty years into a ten-year mine life (wait, what?) the mine continues to prosper. In fact, the Walter Creek heap leach facility started up in in 2009 and has contributed over 750,000 ounces of gold to the project’s production totals. The mine currently anticipates milling gold through 2019 with several years of post-milling heap leach production.
November 2016 | Alaska Business Monthly
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MINING SPECIAL SECTION
in the proposed natural gas pipeline to the project. During 2016, the partners anticipate spending $18 million to fund expenditures at Donlin and an additional $2 million for joint project technical studies.