PEBBLE – Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Sept. 24 reported that a federal court in Alaska released an order recognizing that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has agreed not to advance its Clean Water Act Section 404(c) regulatory process with respect to the Pebble Project in Southwest Alaska until at least Jan. 2, 2015. Pebble Limited Partnership has two cases of pending litigation in U.S federal court with respect to EPA action. The first, for which the State of Alaska is co-plaintiff, challenges EPA’s statutory authority to pre-emptively impose development restrictions on Pebble prior to the submission of a proposed development plan for review by federal and state regulatory agencies. The second charges that EPA has not complied with the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Administrative Procedure Act in preparing the Bristol Bay Assessment study, upon which the Section 404(c) regulatory process is largely based. The purpose of EPA’s agreement is to ensure that both parties in Pebble’s FACA litigation have sufficient time to brief the court, and for the court to decide on the Pebble Partnership’s preliminary injunction motion before EPA takes the next step to advance its regulatory process. Today’s order applies to the FACA case and also states that, should the federal court not issue a decision on the Pebble Partnership’s preliminary injunction motion prior to Jan. 2, 2015, parties to the litigation will work together in good faith to negotiate an extension to the stay.
MANAGEMENT – Graphite One Resources Inc. Sept. 24 reported the appointment of David Hembree as its new United States-based operations manager. Having played a pivotal role in advancing the development of several discoveries in the past, Hembree will be instrumental in progressing Graphite Creek through the resource definition, project feasibility analysis, environmental baseline studies and permitting process. “I am very pleased to join Graphite One and to be a part of the team that moves the Graphite Creek project from the exploration stage through the next logical step of resource definition and project feasibility analysis. The Graphite Creek property has many positive aspects including a large inferred resource base to build on with strong geophysical anomalies and widely spaced drill intercepts along 4.8 kilometers (three miles) of strike length to help guide the next round of resource definition drilling,” said Hembree. Prior to joining Graphite One, Hembree held the position of Vice President of Exploration and Qualified Person with Kimber Resources Inc., where he was instrumental in the sale of their Monterde gold-silver deposit in Mexico. Previously he was U.S. exploration manager for Golden Predator Mines US. Hembree has also worked as chief geologist at the open pit operations of Mineral Ridge Resources and Mt. Hamilton Mining Co. as well as US Exploration manager for Queenstake Resources USA. He holds a B.Sc. degree in geology from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.
COPPER/GOLD – Freegold Ventures Ltd. Sept. 24 reported that its recently completed geophysical survey on the Shorty Creek project has defined significant chargeability anomalies which are coincident with strong copper, gold and bismuth geochemistry. Shorty Creek is a copper gold porphyry project located 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Fairbanks and roughly four kilometers (2.5 miles) south of International Tower Hill’s Livengood gold project. Previous exploration at Shorty Creek identified significant gold, copper and pathfinder elements associated with gold-copper porphyry style mineralization in limited shallow drilling. Since acquiring the project in July, Freegold has completed 28.6 line kilometers of induced polarization surveying; collected 354 soil geochemical samples for analysis; and staked 5,200 acres (12,849 hectares) of additional claims, increasing the project area to 20,920 acres. Results show a strong chargeability anomaly which is more than 2,000 meters long and 1,000 meters wide in the northwestern area of the grid. Coincident with the geophysical anomaly strongly anomalous copper values (up to 669 parts per million) with significant molybdenum (up to 235 ppm) were returned. In the southern portion of the grid, where drilling by Fairbanks Exploration and Asarco was completed in 1989-1990, a significant chargeability zone was identified. Previous limited drilling in the area appears to have targeted the higher resistivity with some of the best copper grades appearing to be associated with the increasing chargeability to the southwest. Strongly anomalous gold (up to 480 parts per billion) and bismuth (up to 276 ppm) are associated with the area of increasing chargeability. In addition to the geophysical and geochemical anomalies, Freegold said extensive alteration and hornfels metamorphism spatially associated with small bodies of biotite granodiorite, quartz porphyry and aplite have previously been previously mapped over a four-kilometer (2.5 miles) by four-kilometer area. Freegold believes Shorty Creek project represents an excellent drill ready porphyry copper-gold target.
FINANCE/CONSOLIDATION – Millrock Resources Inc. Sept. 22 reported plans to complete a financing and share consolidation. The company plans to raise C$3.5 million through the sale of 70 million units at C5 cents each. Each unit consists of one common share and one purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share at C7 cents for a period of two years, and thereafter at a price of C10 cents per share for an additional period of three years. Millrock expects to pay finder’s fees in connection with this financing. The securities issued under this financing will be subject to a hold period of four months from the closing date. Millrock also announces that immediately following the closing of the financing, it will consolidate its stock on a 10:1 basis. Assuming no further share issuances except pursuant to the private placement announced in this news release, Millrock will have approximately 18,413,988 common shares issued and outstanding (about 29,959,588 on a fully diluted basis, excluding any finder’s warrants paid in connection with this financing) immediately following the consolidation. The financing and share consolidation are subject to final approval from the TSX Venture Exchange. Proceeds from the financing will be used for project generation, project marketing to partners and for general corporate purposes. Upon completion of the financing, Millrock will have about C$4.3 million in its treasury.
GOLD/SILVER/COPPER – Nortec Minerals Corp. Sept. 22 reported the signing of two memoranda of understanding to directly acquire 100 percent interest in the Golden Zone property, located in Southcentral Alaska about 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Anchorage. The property consists of 227 State of Alaska mining claims totaling 7,894 hectares (19,598 acres) and includes two leases – an upland mining lease covers the historic Golden Zone mine site and a second mill site lease for a staging area, located thirteen kilometers (eight miles) southeast of the property at Colorado Station on the Alaska Railroad. The property is 16 kilometers (10 miles) west of the Parks Highway and the Alaska Railroad both connecting to the cities of Fairbanks and Anchorage. One memorandum of understanding, with Chulitna Mining Company LLC, provides for Nortec to acquire Chulitna's interest in the property. The second, with Mines Trust Co. and Hidefield Gold Ltd. Hidefield Gold (Alaska), Inc., addresses the interests of the underlying landowners of the property. Together the MOUs provide for Nortec's acquisition of 100 percent interest in the Golden Zone property, subject to cash option payments, shares and net smelter payments. Deposits and prospects at Golden Zone include a well-documented pipe-like body of stockwork controlled breccia mineralization in the late Cretaceous quartz monzonitic intrusive rocks, skarn zones near the intrusive - Permian carbonate and calcareous argillite contacts, and vein and shear-related mineralization in both the intrusive and meta-sedimentary and meta-volcanic rocks. Gold mineralization is associated with silver, arsenic, bismuth, antimony and copper values. The Golden Zone Breccia deposit contains 1.97 million metric tons grading 3.41 grams per metric ton gold, 16.62 g/t silver and 0.11 percent copper in the measured resource category; and 2 million metric tons grading 2.37 g/t gold, 16.25 g/t silver and 0.09 percent copper in the indicated category. Both calculated at a cut-off grade of 1 g/t gold. Nortec reports that these resources do not include any subsequent drilling performed in 2011. Nortec will raise sufficient capital to update the NI 43-101 measured and indicated resources and to assist in making plans to initiate a pre-feasibility study for development. These plans will include detailed metallurgical test work, access road studies and preliminary cost analysis for development. The recent previous work on the Golden Zone property was primarily directed by David Hedderly-Smith, who will continue to consult for the project and offer any assistance as needed.
