special section
Mining
PROJECT GENERATORS
Millrock Resources Inc. management team, from left, Philip St. George, Chief Exploration Officer; Sarah Whicker, Chief Operating Officer; Larry Cooper, Chief Financial Officer; Gregory Beischer, President and Chief Executive Officer.
BY ZAZ HOLLANDER
D
espite tough economic times for the industry, Millrock Resources Inc. rode high gold prices to what executives call a banner year in 2012. This year, Millrock is spending about $11 million on mineral exploration— all but $1 million of it coming from major mining partners, such as Teck American Inc., Kinross Gold Corp. and Vale. Teck and Kinross are global mining companies active in Alaska. Vale is a giant, diversified miner headquartered in Brazil. Formed in 2007, Millrock brings two strengths to the state’s gold rush: a de-
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votion to the project generative-joint venture business model and an experienced team of Alaskans who decided to headquarter in Anchorage and leverage capital from around the world rather than set up shop in Canada like most junior mining companies. “We started the company with the belief in the strong geological potential of Alaska and the fact it’s underexplored compared to other geological jurisdictions,” says Sarah Whicker, Millrock’s chief operating officer. “We’re looking for those massive, world-class deposits that aren’t as easy to find elsewhere in the world now.”
Millrock also likes Alaska’s relatively safe investment climate, Whicker says. Most junior mining companies rely on selling stock to raise venture capital for the purpose of handling the costly, high-risk exploration phase of mining. This dilutes share price. Millrock is also publicly traded, but its project generative-joint venture strategy lowers that kind of fiscal risk since its major investors become big mining companies. Millrock puts its geological knowhow to work on large packages of land to explore for deposits of copper-gold porphyries and pluton-related gold ore bodies. Typically, the company stakes
www.akbizmag.com • Alaska Business Monthly • November 2012
Photo by Judy Patrick Photography
Millrock Resources Inc.