Mining News: Arctic, Bornite programs underway

Trilogy Metals Inc. June 28 reported that the 2017 field program at Arctic and Bornite, two high-grade deposits that make up the larger Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska, is now underway. The US$17.1 million program at UKMP includes 12,000 meters of expansion drilling at Bornite and the final field work needed to complete a prefeasibility study for Arctic. In April, South32 Ltd. signed an agreement to earn a 50 percent joint venture interest in UKMP by investing US$150 million. To keep this option in good standing, South32 must invest at least US$10 million into UKMP annually over the next three years. The first US$10 million has been deposited and is being used to fund resource expansion drilling at Bornite, a high-grade, carbonate hosted copper deposit. Bornite hosts an open-pit resource with roughly 2.7 billion pounds of copper in roughly 124.6 million metric tons of material averaging nearly 1 percent copper; and an underground resource with roughly 3.7 billion lb of copper in 57.8 million tons of material averaging 2.89 percent copper, according to a resource calculated in 2016. The high-grade underground portion of this deposit remains open along a 1,000-meter wide front to the north. This year’s drilling is targeting the expansion of the underground resource to the north. Drilling at Bornite began in early June and three drills are now turning at the deposit. This program is expected to continue into late September with results anticipated to be released late in the summer and continue into the fall. In the meantime, Trilogy is collecting the final bits of information for a prefeasibility study that will detail a plan to develop an open-pit mine at Arctic, a high-grade volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit about 16 miles north of Bornite. In 2013, Trilogy completed a preliminary economic assessment that provided a first glimpse of what such a mine might look like. This scoping level study outlined a 10,000-metric-ton-per-day mill at Arctic that is anticipated to produce roughly 1.5 billion lb of copper, 1.8 billion lb of zinc, 289 million lb of lead, 30.5 million oz of silver and 349,000 oz of gold over a 12-year mine-life. Earlier this year, Trilogy published an updated and expanded resource for Arctic, which will be used as the basis for the PFS, which is slated to be completed in the first quarter of 2018. Trilogy ended its second quarter of 2017, May 31, with US$20.1 million in working capital and US$14.5 million in cash.

–SHANE LASLEY