North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

NIXON FORK - After purchasing the Nixon Fork Mine for C$3 million, Fire River Gold Corp., the newest member of the International Metals Group, is on track to start producing gold at the high-grade gold mine in western Interior Alaska as early as 2010.

Fire River Gold acquired the turnkey gold project from Pacific North West Capital Corp., another International Metals Group company, by paying US$500,000 in cash and issuing 6.415 million, or about 43 percent, of Fire River Gold's issued and outstanding shares. The sister-company also received 1 million purchase warrants and will be reimbursed for the exploration expenses that it has incurred since it bought the property in May.

According to Harry Barr, who is founder of the International Metals Group and president of both Pacific North West Capital and Fire River Gold, the deal benefits both companies. Fire River, which closed its initial public offering in May, is in a better position of the two companies to raise funds needed to move the project toward production as it is completely focused on Alaska gold projects. Pacific North West gets reimbursed for what it has invested in the project and is able to participate in the upside of Nixon Fork through its ownership interest in the new junior.

"Over the last 23 years, I have participated in numerous exploration programs in Alaska and continue to do so, but I am extremely pleased to be working with Dr. Greg Myers and his all-Alaskan technical team whose objective is to put the Nixon Fork Mine back into production and expand its exploration potential," Barr told Mining News during a tour of the mine site Sept. 23.

According to an NI 43-101 report prepared in August for Fire River, Nixon Fork produced 125,591 ounces of gold from about 106,137 metric tons of ore mined between 1920 and 2007. In addition to the gold, at least 19,566 ounces of silver and 1.273 million pounds of copper was recovered during the same period.

Though Nixon Fork has historically produced high-grade gold (an average of about 38 grams per metric ton), past producers have not been able to keep the mine in production. By carefully evaluating the mine, Fire River hopes to capitalize on exploration and development expenditures made by past owners.

"We think we have a major opportunity (at Nixon Fork), and it's multifaceted. We can be in production within 18 months if everything comes together, said Nixon Fork Project Manager Greg Myers. "We have lots of ways to look at this; there are surface stockpiles; there are tailings; and there is underground potential that is not fully explored."

Turnkey operation

With the purchase of Nixon Fork, located about 56 kilometers, or 35 miles, northeast of McGrath, Fire River Gold boasts ownership of a fully functional high-grade gold mine.

The previous operator at Nixon Fork, St Andrew Goldfields, spent about US$54 million on upgrades and new equipment after purchasing the underground gold mine in 2003. St Andrew put Nixon Fork in limited production in 2007, but due to economic challenges, the Toronto-based company shuttered the mine and put it up for sale.

The facility that Pacific North West bought for US$500,000 is complete with a 200-metric-ton-per-day flotation plant with a gravity gold separation circuit, a sulfide flotation circuit, and a brand-new Carbon-in-leach circuit. The mine also boasts a fleet of mining vehicles, a power plant, maintenance facilities, an 85-person camp, office facilities, and a 1.5 kilometer-long airstrip.

The purchase also includes a US$3.5 million bond posted to the State of Alaska and the permits needed to move the project quickly back into production.

Alaska Department of Natural Resources Mining Section Chief Rick Fredericksen confirmed Sept. 22 that the bonds and permits for the mine are in place and current.

Another man's treasure

The adage, "One man's junk is another man's treasure," could literally be true for the owners of Nixon Fork.

The tailings that past producers disposed of are believed to contain at least 40,000 troy ounces of gold, and could provide Fire River's first gold production. It is estimated that the already-milled tailings contain about one-quarter ounce of gold per metric ton and could be processed through the existing facility by mid-2010.

According to Fire River Gold, the first operator of the Nixon Fork Mine produced an average head grade of about 43 grams per metric ton but only averaged 83 percent recovery, leaving about 7.3 g/t in the milled tailings. Based on previous engineering, and metallurgical studies, the tailings pond contains about 150,000 metric tons of mill tailings with an average grade of 8.1 g/t, or nearly 40,000 troy ounces of gold.

Fire River completed a 15-hole drill program at the tailings facility, and about 110 samples have been sent to an assay lab in Fairbanks, Alaska. The junior is also having metallurgical studies done on the tailings material. The results of this work will help the company determine the feasibility of processing the tailings.

Myers would like to use the new CIL circuit to recover the gold from the tailings, but the expected high copper content may prevent that. The company will look at other options, including running the gold-rich material back through the mill to be reprocessed with gravity and flotation recovery.

A complete evaluation on the tailings is expected to be finalized with a corresponding report issued by the end of the year. Subject to positive results, management plans to install the balance of the CIL plant or other related tailings production equipment in the winter of 2010.

Re-evaluating the resource

Though everything is in place to reopen the mine, Fire River Gold plans to complete an extensive re-evaluation of the geological model at Nixon Fork before resuming operations. Continuing the work initiated by North West Capital in April, Fire River Gold is spending about C$1.25 million on the program.

In order to have a better understanding of the complex geology of the high-grade gold mineralization at Nixon Fork, the newly-formed company is compiling all the information that has been generated into a three-dimension model.

Re-logging the thousands of meters of drill core that is on-site also will help give company geologists a better grip on the mineralization at Nixon Fork.

Using the compiled data and new information learned from logging the core, Myers is re-interpreting the geological model for Nixon Fork. This work is scheduled to be completed by early in 2010, but the project manager said there is still a massive amount of data to go through, and he will take the time needed to thoroughly evaluate the information before moving the underground project forward.

"We are focusing the 2009-2010 exploration program on a complete re-logging of the previous drilling samples. Several phases of the intrusive rock complex have been identified and a few specific dikes are clearly associated with mineralization. The challenge now is to figure out what controls the occurrence of these dikes so we can better target them with the next drilling phase, and create a new 3-dimensional model of the geology and mineralization," Myers told Mining News.

Once Myers has completed the geological model the company will move ahead with an exploration program in 2010.

A century of mining

Placer gold discoveries were made at Nixon Fork about 100 years ago. The first lode gold was discovered in 1918 when Yukon-Treadwell Co. and others began working deposits through shafts and open cuts.

The modern era of Nixon Fork began when Battle Mountain Gold explored the high-grade gold deposit in 1984. Myers was part of the Battle Mountain team that discovered Nixon Fork.

Nevada Goldfields Inc. constructed and operated the Nixon Fork Gold Mine high-grade underground gold mine from 1995-1998, recovering 137,749 ounces of gold and 2.1 million pounds of copper, with additional silver credits. Due to money-losing investments in Mexico, the company was forced to close the Alaska mine in 1999.

St Andrew purchased the mine in 2003. During nine months of production through September 2007, workers ran 18,105 metric tons of ore extracted from the upper portion of the 3300 zone of the Crystal deposit through the mill with an average head grade of 17.1 g/t gold.

Because of the lower than anticipated grades and financial difficulties, the Toronto-based miner placed Nixon Fork on care and maintenance. After shutting down production the company completed 9,381 meters of reserve‐and resource definition drilling but never completed an updated NI 43-101 compliant resource for the deposit.

Based on the drilling, an in-house resource update prepared by St Andrews reports a reserve of 220,000 ounces of gold at 25 g/t, and a resource of about 162,000 ounces of gold at 18.6 g/t, both containing about 1.2 percent copper.

The most current NI 43-101 report published for Nixon Fork was completed for St Andrew in 2006. The technical report said the deposit contains 137,500 tons of probable mineral reserves grading 18.6 grams of gold per metric ton (82,230 ounces), 23,400 metric tons of measured resources averaging 36.8 g/t gold (27,685 ounces), and 126,000 metric tons of indicated resources grading 21.6 g/t gold (87,686 ounces) with an additional 93,000 metric tons at 15.5 g/t gold (46,273 ounces).

Fire River believes its re-evaluation of the current data will increase this resource and provide a better geological understanding of Nixon Fork. The company can then use this knowledge to define more underground reserves and begin to look at other gold targets identified on the property that have yet to be explored.

Exploring Golden Zone

Golden Zone is another property Fire River optioned this summer. This advanced-stage gold-copper-silver exploration project is located 150 miles, or 240 kilometers north of Anchorage, Alaska on the south flank of the Alaska Range.

The Golden Zone property has received more than 20,000 meters of drilling, extensive trenching, soil sampling grids, multiple geophysical surveys, and metallurgical samples collected from core and the underground workings in the main breccia zone.

A technical report prepared by Norwest Corporation for Piper Capital in May, 2005 reports the NI 43-101-compliant mineral resource as containing a measured and indicated resource of approximately 3.09 million tons grading 2.81 grams per metric ton gold for a total of 259,940 ounces, with 7.61 million pounds of copper and 1.39 million ounces of silver. Fire River said it has not confirmed this resource and it is currently having a new NI 43-101 resource completed for the property.

The newly-formed junior said the breccia target is the most advanced of the 14 targets identified at Golden Zone and hosts the mineral resource. The 2009 exploration program will evaluate the possible extension of this mineralization. Fire River believes that further exploration of the 19,768-acre property has the potential to add millions of ounces to the company's gold banks.

Fire River also completed preliminary work on its two grassroots gold projects. Shortly after completing its IPO in May the company conducted an initial exploration of the Draken gold property, located in the Fortymile District of eastern Alaska. The junior is also reviewing data on its newly-acquired Kansas Creek gold project.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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