Since acquiring Amaruq in 2013, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. has elevated the Nunavut property from an intriguing grassroots prospect to a 2-million-ounce gold deposit that could follow the company’s Meadowbank Mine as a successful venture in Nunavut.
“While it is still at an early stage of exploration, in less than two years, the Amaruq property has advanced from a grassroots discovery to a project that now hosts a significant and growing inferred gold resource. We also see good potential to expand the known deposits and discover new areas of mineralization on the property,” said Agnico Eagle CEO Sean Boyd.
In February, the company announced a maiden inferred mineral resource for Amaruq of 6.6 million metric tons at 7.07 grams per metric ton (1.5 million oz) gold, which was boosted to 2 million oz in August.
This rapid expansion of high-grade gold already has Agnico looking seriously at the potential of developing Amaruq as a satellite to the Meadowbank mine, located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) to the southeast.
In July, the company announced plans to include the Vault Pit in the mine plan for Meadowbank, which is expected to extend the life of the mine by about one year, to the third quarter of 2018.
The added year will help bridge the gap between the end of production at Meadowbank and the potential start of a satellite operation at Amaruq.
A whale of a deposit
Agnico entered 2015 with high expectations for Amaruq; the 100,000 meters of drilling completed this year did not betray these hopes for the potential of the early-stage project.
A big part of the 50,000-meter initial phase of this year’s program focused on a gap in the growing Whale Tail deposit at Amaruq which lies under Whale Lake. Highlights from this drilling include 19.8 g/t gold over five meters in hole AMQ15-187; and 15.9 g/t gold over 14.6 meters in hole AMQ15-181.
The drilling also confirmed a new gold structure about 100 meters north of the Whale Tail deposit, including 6.1 g/t gold over four meters and 9.7 grams g/t gold over 3.8 meters in hole AMQ15-177.
After drilling 102 holes during the first phase completed at the end of May, Agnico published an updated inferred resource of 9.7 million metric tons grading 6.47 grams per metric ton (2 million oz) gold for Amaruq, reflecting a 35 percent increase in gold content since the end of 2014. Most of this resource – 9.1 million metric tons grading 6.56 g/t (1.9 million oz) gold – is located in the Whale Tail deposit.
“The updated resource estimate demonstrates that the Whale Tail deposit appears amenable to open pit mining, and there is potential for a higher grade underground operation,” said Boyd.
The company continued to explore Amaruq this fall with a second 50,000-meter drill program started in July. The program is expanding the extent of known mineralization and finding new prospects on the 114,761-hectare (283,580 acres) property.
At Whale Tail, phase-2 drilling has encountered an open-ended high-grade ore shoot that yielded intersections of 6.7 g/t gold over 32.3 meters from a depth of 284 meters in hole AMQ15-310; and 10.4 g/t gold over 21.9 meters from a depth of 311 meters in hole AMQ15-330.
The company said that infill and deep exploration drilling continues to cut multiple intercepts of high-grade gold amenable to both open-pit and underground mining.
Drilling to the west of the Whale Tail zone in an area called Mammoth Lake cut mineralization between 50 and 300 meters that appears to connect with the Whale Tail deposit, possibly extending the strike length of the combined mineralization to roughly 2,000 meters.
On the eastern edge of Mammoth Lake, 600 meters west of the known Whale Tail zone, Hole AMQ15-261 cut 6.2 g/t gold over 11.3 meters in the Mammoth Lake area some 600 meters west of Whale Tail. Two hundred meters farther west, hole AMQ15-246 cut two g/t gold over 8.8 meters and 6.8 g/t gold over 12.9 meters. Another 1,400 meters farther southwest, hole AMQ15-226 cut 13.3 g/t gold over three meters at 162 meters depth. In the eastern part of Mammoth Lake, AMQ15-351 cut 10.8 g/t gold over 6.9 meters.
Engineering and environmental baseline studies are underway to support the permitting process for Amaruq as a potential satellite to Agnico’s Meadowbank mine.
The application to construct an all-weather access road between Meadowbank and the Amaruq site was filed in the first quarter of 2015.
Nunavut platform
Agnico said it is studying options and alternatives in Nunavut to maximize the value of its large and growing mineral resource base in the territory.
“In Nunavut we continue to focus on moving several of the pieces forward so that we’re in a position in the first part of next year to decide how we move that large Nunavut platform forward,” Boyd explained.
While Amaruq is shaping up as an exciting new piece to Agnico’s overall strategy, Meliadine, an advanced stage project about 290 kilometers (180 miles) to the southeast of Meadowbank, is another important component.
In March, Agnico published an updated technical report for Meliadine, a large gold development project located near the community of Rankin Inlet. This study was based on extracting only the 3.3 million oz of gold in proven and probable mineral reserves (13.9 million metric tons of ore at 7.44 g/t gold), which is contained in the Tiriganiaq and Wesmeg deposits. The Meliadine property also hosts 3.3 million oz of measured and indicated mineral resources (20.2 million metric tons at 5.06 g/t gold), and 3.5 million oz of inferred mineral resources (14.1 million metric tons at 7.65 g/t gold). The company is currently evaluating potential expanded production scenarios at Meliadine.
In addition to finding success north of Meadowbank, Agnico is seeking near-mine exploration upside at Aura Silver Resources Inc.’s Greyhound property located 32 kilometers (20 miles) south of the mine.
In 2014, Agnico Eagle entered into an option agreement to earn an initial 51 percent interest in a portion of Greyhound by paying Aura C$250,000 and investing C$1.75 million in exploration by the end of May 2017, a stake that can be raised to 70 percent with additional expenditures. Following up on the results from rock sampling and drilling completed in 2014, Agnico funded a C$500,000 program that included a 1,000-meter drill program to test gold and silver zones around Aura Lake gold; as well as copper targets at a prospect known as Dingo.
