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

Graphite One Resources announced Inc. Dec. 29 that it has appointed noted Alaska placer gold miners Kevin Greenfield and Jerry Birch to its advisory board. Co-owners and senior executives of Taiga Mining Company, Greenfield and Birch each bring nearly three decades of developing, permitting and operating Alaska mining projects to Graphite One.

In early December, Taiga Mining participated in a C$707,185 Graphite One financing, becoming a strategic investor in the owner of the Graphite Creek project in western Alaska.

“We’re excited to get behind the Graphite Creek project,” said Kevin Greenfield. “We know what it takes to build a successful mining venture, and we see so many strengths in Graphite One.”

“After welcoming Taiga as a strategic investor in Graphite One, we are delighted to have Kevin and Jerry’s expertise as members of our advisory board,” said Graphite One President and CEO Anthony Huston. “Their accomplishments in Alaska and their reputations in the state’s mining community are unparalleled.”

Greenfield and Birch formed Taiga Mining Company in 1990. Starting out as a small Interior Alaska gold operation with a 6-cubic foot bucket line dredge, Greenfield and Birch have built Taiga into a company that was recognized as Alaska Miners Association’s 2017 “Corporate Member of the Year”, an honor that recognizes the company’s contributions to the Alaskan mining community.

Taiga was also the 2012 recipient of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s prestigious National Reclamation Award in 2012, recognizing the placer gold mining company’s long record of responsible stewardship of the nation’s land and water.

Located roughly 35 miles north of Nome, Graphite Creek is the largest known deposit of graphite in North America.

Systematic drilling of only a small section of the 11 miles of known near-surface mineralization at Graphite Creek has outlined 17.95 million metric tons of indicated resource grading 6.3 percent graphitic carbon and 154.36 million metric tons of inferred resource at 5.7 percent graphitic carbon at this deposit.

The unique characteristics of the material at Graphite Creek makes it well suited for being transformed into coated spherical graphite, which is used as an anode material in the batteries of electric autos.

“All of us at GPH look forward to working with Kevin and Jerry as we write a new chapter in Alaska mining with our proposed Graphite Creek Project, conceived as a vertically integrated enterprise to mine, process and manufacture high grade coated spherical graphite primarily for the lithium-ion electric vehicle battery market,” said Huston.

A preliminary economic assessment completed early in 2016 outlined plans for a mine at Graphite Creek and an off-site facility to refine the graphite that would produce 41,850 metric tons of coated spherical graphite and 13,500 metric tons of purified graphite powders annually.

“Alaska needs to bring new metals and minerals into its resource mix,” said Birch. “Graphite, and the advanced graphite materials it yields, will mark a new chapter in Alaska’s resource production.”

-SHANE LASLEY