PEBBLE – United Tribes of Bristol Bay July 2 announced that it will intervene as a defendant in the a lawsuit filed in May by Pebble Limited Partnership that seeks an injunction to stop the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to pre-emptively veto the Pebble Project under Section 404(c) of the U.S. Clean Water Act. UTBB, which describes itself as a consortium working for the protection of the Bristol Bay watershed from large-scale metallic sulfide mines, said it originally requested EPA’s measures to proactively protect Bristol Bay from the potential impacts of large scale metallic sulfide mining like the proposed Pebble Mine through an open, scientific process and the organization remains in strong support of agency action. In late June, a federal judge granted the state of Alaska permission to intervene as a plaintiff in the Pebble Partnership’s lawsuit against EPA. “The 404(c) process over which the Pebble Partnership and the Parnell Administration is suing is the very course that the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, along with thousands of Alaskans, requested the EPA take in efforts to protect our people and region from the harmful effects of large-scale mining,” said United Tribes of Bristol Bay President Robert Heyano. The Alaska Peninsula Corp., which owns surface land rights in the Bristol Bay watershed, including next to the Pebble deposit, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit against EPA. The Pebble Partnership and Alaska Peninsula Corp. requested that the federal judge presiding over the case order the EPA to halt an ongoing 404(c) review process that could result in a pre-emptive veto of the permits needed to develop a mine at Pebble.
STRATEGIC AND CRITICAL MINERALS – Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys July 1 released the results from the re-analysis of historical U.S. Bureau of Mines samples for geochemical trace-element and rare-earth-element data from six prospective areas: Selawik Hills, northwestern Alaska; Zane Hills pluton, northwestern Alaska; Darby Mountains, Seward Peninsula; Ray River watershed, and Kanuti and Hodzana rivers uplands, central Alaska; Porcupine River drainage, northeastern Alaska; Kook Lake, Sitka Quadrangle, southeastern Alaska. Archives samples collected by the U.S. Bureau of Mines were re-analyzed by DGGS using modern, quantitative, geochemical-analytical methods. The objective of DGGS’s re-analysis program is to update the State of Alaska’s statewide digital geochemical database in order to more clearly identify areas with strategic and critical minerals potential. In total, DGGS obtained new geochemical analysis on 822 historical Bureau of Mines samples, including rock, stream sediment, soil and heavy metal concentrate samples. Additional information, including digital versions of the reports and associated metadata files are available for free at the DGGS website.
FINANCE – NovaCopper Inc. July 1 reported that it has entered into definitive agreements with existing shareholders to complete a non-brokered private placement offering of US$7.5 million. Each unit of the private placement will be priced at US$1.15 and will consist of one common share of the Company and one purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the company at a price of US$1.60 per share for a period of five years from the closing date. The offering is being purchased by the NovaCopper’s largest shareholders, including Electrum Strategic Resources LP and Paulson & Co. Inc. Use of proceeds will be restricted to a maximum of US$4 million on general and administrative expenses, US$2.7 million on program expenditures and US$800,000 on expenses incurred in reducing annual G&A for 12 months following closing, which is expected by July 3. NovaCopper says intends to carry out a modest field program this summer at its projects in Ambler mining district of Northwest Alaska, which will primarily consist of re-logging and re-assaying historical drill holes at Bornite which were previously drilled and only selectively sampled by Kennecott, the former owner of the property. Targeted historical holes are located within the extensions of the Upper and Lower Reef mineralization captured in the Bornite open pit resource released by NovaCopper in March and the up dip portion of South Reef zone. The company anticipates that the 2014 program will re-sample and re-assay between 10,000 and 13,000 meters of drill core. This effort is a continuation of last year’s program of re-sampling and re-assaying which targeted 33 drill holes comprising 11,067 meters originally drilled by Kennecott between 1957 and 1975. Last year’s re-assay program resulted in a significant increase in the low-grade copper mineralization at Bornite and the company expects that the 2014 re-logging and re-assaying program this year could add additional low-grade material to the Bornite copper inventory and reduce the strip ratio for a potential open-pit mining operation.
FINANCE – Goldrich Mining Co. July 1 reported the closing of the second tranche of a US$1.26 million private placement financing. The second tranche involved 8.7 million units at US5.5 cents per unit for proceeds of US$479,000; the first tranche, which closed on June 9, involved 14.2 million units at US5.5 cents per unit for US$781,000. The proceeds of the financing will be used primarily for ongoing development of Goldrich’s Chandalar property in Alaska and general operating expense. Of the 22.91 million units sold during the financing, officers and directors of Goldrich purchased 1.3 million units on the same terms and conditions as units purchased by other investors in the private placement.
DEFAULT – Bluestone Resources Inc. June 30 reported that John Robins, president and CEO of the company, is requiring full repayment of a C$130,000 loan announced in December, 2013. The loan is secured by the Richardson gold property in Alaska. Bluestone directors, independent from the loan, requested an extension of the maturity date to allow time to find a suitable financing alternative. The request for an extension has been denied by the lender. Robins has agreed that upon transfer of the Richardson property, the loan will be extinguished in full, including all outstanding interest. Robins has also agreed to assume all outstanding fees owed to the Alaska government with respect to the property, in the sum of approximately US$25,000. The independent directors have concluded this is the best course of action for the company.
METALLURGY – Freegold Ventures Ltd. June 27 reported that technical data generated from a comprehensive metallurgical test program from its Golden Summit project provides adequate data to examine both the potential for a standalone valley heap-leach operation on all material (oxide and sulfide) as well as to investigate a higher recovery milling operation at the gold project located near Fairbanks, Alaska. A series of composite samples from the various areas from the Dolphin-Cleary Resource area were submitted to SGS Canada Inc. for testing. A total of 279 samples of drill core assay rejects representing the different areas of the resource were composited to form five sample types: oxide, transition, hornfels-sulfide, intrusive-sulfide and schist-sulfide. Overall gold recoveries from standard 48-hour bottle roll tests and 120-hour intermittent agitation leach tests from the as-received material were: oxide material averaged 88 percent, transition material averaged 57 percent; intrusive material averaged 56 percent; and hornfels-sulfide material averaged 45 percent. Standard bottle roll testwork was carried out on a variety of grind sizes however recoveries did not increase substantially with finer grinds, with the exception of the transition material which showed recoveries of greater than 70 percent are achievable at a 75 micron grind size. In addition, a series of tests which included a variety of methods were completed: direct carbon-in-leach; pressure oxidation-CIL; flotation-CIL; and flotation-POX-CIL were completed. The highest overall recovery was achieved by POX-CIL with recoveries greater than 94.3 percent, and averaging 98.1 percent under best conditions tested. The flotation-POX-CIL testing resulted in recoveries of 92 percent. Though recoveries were less, after floatation only about 10 percent of the material is subject to pressure oxidation, providing significant advantage compared to whole ore pressure oxidation. Cyanide consumption was lowest under POX-CIL, requiring 0.5-0.7 kilograms per metric tons sodium cyanide, all other processes averaged 1-4 kilograms per metric ton cyanide. Further metallurgical testing is planned which will include a series of column tests, partial oxidation and heap leach amenability investigations. A preliminary economic assessment currently underway is scheduled for completion early in the fourth quarter.
