NovaCopper Inc. is exercising the discipline of a marathon runner as it paces towards the finish line – developing the high-grade copper deposits at its Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska into world-class mines.
This year’s US$5.5 million program for UKMP – a budget identical to 2015 – will continue to collect the data needed to complete a prefeasibility study for an open-pit mine at the Arctic deposit, while continuing to seek areas to expand upon the more than eight billion pounds of copper it has identified there and at Bornite, a second world-class deposit that lies a mere 16 miles to the south.
“While the majority of this year’s site investigation program will focus on the Arctic project, the company also will continue to improve our geological understanding of the regional exploration potential of the Ambler mining district through low-cost bedrock mapping within the Ambler schist belt and a deep penetrating soil geochemistry survey located immediately north and east of the current Bornite multibillion-pound copper resource,” explained NovaCopper President and CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse.
Upgrading Arctic
A roughly 3,000-meter drill program at Arctic will be the biggest ticket item of the 2016 program. It will include the last bit of infill drilling needed to upgrade the resource of this copper- and zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit prior to completion of a pre-feasibility study.
Prior to the infill drilling completed by NovaCopper last year, Arctic already hosted 23.85 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 3.26 percent (1.71 billion lbs.) copper, 4.45 percent (2.34 billion lbs.) zinc, 0.76 percent (400 million lbs.) lead, 0.71 grams per metric ton (550,000 oz.) gold, and 53.2 g/t (40.8 million oz.) silver. Additionally, this VMS deposit encompasses 3.63 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 3.22 percent (239 million lbs.) copper, 3.84 percent (285 million lbs.) zinc, 0.58 percent (43.2 million lbs.) lead and 0.59 g/t (60,000 oz.) gold.
“We will have completed all the in-fill drilling so that the majority of resources will be measured and indicated to be incorporated in the PFS,” Nieuwenhuyse told Mining News via email.
The drilling is also expected to have collected the information needed to finalize the “in-pit geotechnical (pit slope stability), hydrology and metallurgical studies sufficient for a PFS.”
In addition to drillers and geologists, the Bornite camp that supports the UKMP program will host crews carrying out aquatic; archaeological; subsistence; avian and large mammal surveys. This work, in conjunction with expansion and refinement of current wetlands delineation studies, will help engineers pick the best sites for mine-related facilities.
NovaCopper plans to complete the geotechnical work needed to further refine locations for a power plant, mill, waste rock pile, stockpiles and tailings facilities during the 2017 program.
With US$13 million in the bank, NovaCopper has plenty of cash to finalize the pre-feasibility study this year, but has chosen to take measured steps until copper markets recover.
“The gold and silver space is moving well, but it has not yet blessed copper with the same enthusiasm. When this sentiment changes (perhaps next year) we will advance Arctic to a PFS and hopefully get back to drilling at Bornite to explore the upside there,” said Nieuwenhuyse.
Expanding Bornite
Though NovaCopper has not drilled Bornite since 2013, the company has been able to efficiently expand the resource of this large copper deposit by re-logging and re-sampling core drilled by Kennecott more than four decades ago. This work has been so effective that earlier this year NovaCopper reported a 173 percent increase to the in-pit indicated resource at Bornite.
Using a 0.50 percent copper cutoff grade, Bornite now encompasses 40.5 million metric tons of in-pit indicated resources averaging 1.02 percent (913 million pounds) copper; and 84.1 million metric tons of inferred resources averaging 0.95 percent (1.8 billion lbs.) copper.
Additionally, at a 1.50 percent copper cutoff grade, Bornite is estimated to contain 57.8 million metric tons of below-pit inferred resources averaging 2.89 percent (3.7 billion lbs.) copper.
Total contained metal in the inferred resources – in-pit and underground – decreased by four percent. The reduction is due principally to upgrading in-pit inferred resources to the indicated category.
“The latest results on Bornite further demonstrate that Ambler is evolving into one of the world’s major mining districts,” said Van Nieuwenhuyse.
The next step of this evolution will likely come from the expansion of the high-grade underground Bornite resource, which remains open along a 1,000-meter wide front to the north.
Hole RC13-0220, the most northeasterly hole drilled at Bornite cut three very high-grade intervals from 877 to 923 meters (at a 2.0 percent cutoff): 5.9 meters of 6.66 percent copper; 9.9 meters of 2.48 percent copper; and 19.7 meters of 2.24 percent copper.
Hole RC13-0224, drilled about 800 meters west of hole 220, cut five high-grade intercepts from 579 meters to 755 meters along this northern front: 19.5 meters of 3.02 percent copper; 16.8 meters of 2.36 percent copper; 39.5 meters of 2.37 percent copper; 8.6 meters of 3.26 percent copper; and 6.5 meters of 7.7 percent copper.
The NovaCopper CEO believes that expanding Bornite in this direction could put Arctic and Bornite in the stratosphere with Mount Isa, a deposit in Australia that has produced more than 400 million metric tons of ore grading 2.12 percent copper.
“Currently, between Arctic and Bornite we have identified just over 205 million metric tons of 2.2 percent copper-equivalent – that is roughly half of what the Mount Isa copper mine has produced over the last 75 years,” he told Mining News via email.
When enthusiasm returns to the copper space, NovaCopper plans to see if the other half of a Mount Isa-sized district lies north of Bornite. The company, meanwhile, will continue to evaluate the potential of developing Arctic, a deposit that averages nearly 6 percent copper-equivalent when you factor in the value of the zinc, lead, gold and silver also found there.
“(W)e believe the Ambler mining district represents a unique opportunity in the global copper space – not to mention our significant resources of zinc, gold and silver!” Van Nieuwenhuyse added.
