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

Seabridge Gold Inc. Feb. 13 announced a significant increase in both the size and grade of Iron Cap, one of four large gold-copper porphyry deposits at the company's KSM project located in northwestern British Columbia.

In fact, the amount of gold in the inferred resource category at Iron Cap is now at 20 million ounces, a 302 percent increase over the 5 million oz in a resource calculated in 2016. Likewise, the amount of copper in inferred resources now stands at 8.6 billion pounds, 379 percent more than the 1.8 billion lb in the previous resource estimate. At the same time the inferred copper grade jumps 36 percent and the inferred gold grade increased 14 percent.

Overall, Iron Cap now hosts 370 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.43 grams per metric ton (5.1 million oz) gold; 0.23 percent (1.9 billion lb) copper; 4.2 g/t (49.9 million oz) silver; and 48 parts per million (39 million lb) molybdenum. Plus, 1.3 billion tons of inferred resource averaging 0.48 g/t (20 million oz) gold; 0.3 percent (8.6 billion lb) copper; 2.9 g/t (121 million oz) silver; and 34 ppm (34 million lb) molybdenum.

The updated resource estimate incorporates all previous drilling plus 10,383 meters of core drilling completed in 11 holes last year.

The substantially larger gold-copper resource at Iron Cap supports Seabridge's plan to investigate the viability of mining Iron Cap much earlier in the life of a future mine at KSM.

The four deposits at KSM – Kerr, Sulphurets, Mitchell and Iron Cap – encompass 2.2 billion metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.55 grams per metric ton (38.8 million oz) gold, 0.21 percent (10.2 billion pounds) copper, 2.6 g/t (183 million oz) silver, and 42.6 parts per million (207 million lb) molybdenum.

These reserves support a 53-year mine that would average 540,000 oz gold, 156 million lb copper, 2.2 million oz silver, and 1.2 million lb molybdenum per year, according to a 2016 prefeasibility study.

At the time of the 2016 technical report, Iron Cap had 224 million metric tons of probable reserves averaging 0.49 g/t gold, 0.2 percent copper and 3.6 g/t silver.

This deposit was not slated to be mined until about 32 years into the life of the operation. But once Seabridge recognized Iron Cap could be much larger than originally indicated, the company began seeing advantages of moving this deposit to the front of the production schedule.

"All our objectives at Iron Cap were more than accomplished last year. A larger, richer Iron Cap deposit is expected to take a more prominent place in our mine planning. We believe Iron Cap has the potential to make a strong contribution to improving project economics thanks to its higher grade and its favorable capital and operating costs due to its location close to planned infrastructure," said Seabridge Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk.

The 2017 program met another perennial Seabridge goal – adding substantial ounces of gold per dollar invested in exploration.

"These resource additions once again have met our annual corporate objective of increasing gold ownership on a per share basis. We added over 15 million inferred resource ounces of gold in our 2017 program, while losing 600,000 ounces of indicated resources," said Fronk. "In 2017, our shares outstanding increased by 3.36 million shares resulting from new financings to fund our programs, acquisitions of new projects and other share issuances."

"Enhancing shareholder ownership of gold resources remains a governing principle for our company and 2017 marks the 18th successive year that we have achieved this self-imposed discipline," the Seabridge CEO added.

–SHANE LASLEY

EDITOR'S NOTE: The indicated resource tonnage (370 million metric tons) was corrected in this article on May 7. The gold contained in the inferred resource category (20 million oz) was corrected on June 5.