The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Chief Executive Officer: Richard Li
Exploration Manager: Jelle De Bruyckere
Selwyn Chihong Mining Ltd.., a Canadian subsidiary of Yunnan Chihong Zinc & Germanium Co. Ltd., is marching the Selwyn zinc-lead project in western Yukon Territory towards production.
Yunnan Chihong Zinc & Germanium formed a joint venture with Selwyn Resources Ltd. on the project in 2009.
The southern China-based mining and smelting company subsequently invested C$100 million to earn a 50 percent interest in Selwyn and then bought the other half of the project from Selwyn Resources for C$50 million in cash.
According to a 2012 calculation, the Selwyn project has an indicated resource of 185.57 million metric tons averaging 5.2 percent (21.26 billion pounds) zinc and 1.79 percent (7.3 billion lbs) lead, and an inferred resource of 237.86 million metric tons averaging 4.47 percent (23.45 billion lbs) zinc and 1.38 percent (7.22 billion lbs) lead.
With the goal of putting a mine into production in 2020, Selwyn Chihong budgeted C$56 million to advance the enormous zinc project in 2014.
Though earlier studies considered an underground mine, Selwyn Chihong believes a larger scale open-pit mine with a 25,000-metric-ton-per-day mill is a better fit for developing one of the world's largest zinc deposits With the goal of gaining the geological information needed to support this more ambitious zinc mine, the Chinese mining company plans to invest some C$22 million of its 2014 budget in a 55,000-meter drill program that targets seven of the 15 known mineralized zones at Selwyn.
Another C$13 million will be spent on upgrading the Howard's Pass Road, an access road that links the Selwyn project to Yukon Territory's contiguous road system.
Selwyn Chihong Mining also must identify a port for transporting the zinc concentrates to overseas smelters.
Any chosen port site, either in Southeast Alaska or British Columbia, would need to be expanded to handle the anticipated zinc and lead concentrates produced at Selwyn.
The company is also considering its fuel options with an eye on sourcing liquefied natural gas.
All of this year's work will support a bankable feasibility study due to be completed in mid-2015.
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