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

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Chairman: Thomas Kaplan

President and CEO: Gregory Lang

Executive Vice President: David Deisley

Supporting the permitting process for the Donlin Gold project in Alaska continued to be the primary focus of Novagold Resources Inc. in 2015.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lead agency for the Donlin Gold Environmental Impact Statement, plans to issue a draft EIS for public comment toward year's end 2015 and the final EIS is expected to be completed by early 2017.

This puts Donlin Gold LLC - an operating company equally owned by subsidiaries of Novagold and Barrick Gold Corp. - on pace to begin construction within two years, if the partners decide that building the gold mine is prudent.

A feasibility study completed in 2011 envisions a 53,500-metric-ton-per-day mill at Donlin producing an average of 1.1 million ounces of gold annually at a cash-cost of US$585 per ounce for 27 years.

During its first five years of operation, the massive mine is designed to extract 1.5 million oz of gold annually at an average cash cost of US$409 per ounce.

At US$1,200/oz gold, the base price scenario used for the feasibility study, the mine is predicted to generate after-tax cash flow averaging US$949.5 million per year for the first five years and US$500.7 million annually over the life of the mine - resulting in a payback of its foreseen US$6.7 billion in capital costs in 9.2 years.

In addition to permitting, Novagold and Barrick have allotted a combined US$3 million for studies aimed at finding ways to improve the design and execution of the mine proposed in the study.

With roughly US$135 million in the bank and no debt, Novagold has sufficient cash to see Donlin Gold through the permitting process.

Novagold hopes to further bolster its cash with the eventual sale of the Galore Creek copper-gold project in northwestern British Columbia.

The company and its partner at Galore Creek, Teck Resources Ltd., meanwhile, are content with maintaining the project and optimizing a mine plan while global markets stabilize and the demand for and price of copper rebounds.

A feasibility study completed in 2011 envisioned a mine a Galore Creek producing 6.2 billion pounds of copper over an 18-year span - making it the largest copper mining operation in Canada.

Crediting the 4 million oz gold and 65.8 million oz silver forecast to be recovered over that mine-life, Galore Creek also would be the lowest cost copper producer in the country.

For 2015, Novagold and Teck invested roughly US$3.2 million in technical and environmental baseline studies and other work aimed at protecting and enhancing the value of Galore Creek.

Cash and term deposits: US$130 million (Aug. 31, 2015)

Working capital: US$130 million (Aug. 31, 2015)

Market capitalization: US$1.13 billion (Sept. 17, 2015)

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