Iron Cap has Seabridge rethinking KSM

North of 60 Mining News – February 2, 2018

 

Last updated 9/24/2020 at 6:19pm

Seabridge Gold Inc.

Drilling at Iron Cap has encountered long sections of higher grade copper and gold at Seabridge Gold's KSM project in northwestern British Columbia.

Seabridge Gold Inc. Jan. 31 said the results from the 2017 drill program at Iron Cap – one of four deposits that make up the company's KSM project in northwestern British Columbia – encountered long sections of copper-gold mineralization. The success of this drilling, coupled with the deposit's proximity to proposed mine infrastructure, has Seabridge considering the potential of mining Iron Cap ahead of the massive Mitchell and Kerr deposits.

The four 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 ounces) 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.

"In the November 2016 KSM technical report, the Iron Cap deposit was the last deposit of four to be mined with production starting in year 32 of the current 50-plus-year mine plan. Iron Cap has some advantages. It's situated in the same valley as key planned infrastructure and is immediately adjacent to the proposed tunnel conveying ore to the processing plant," said Seabridge Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk. "Kerr, on the other hand, is in the next valley approximately 10 kilometers (six miles) away, requiring significant additional infrastructure to develop and transport its ore to the mill. The reasons for deferral of Iron Cap were its comparatively small size and lower grade which did not warrant earlier development in our 2016 KSM technical report."

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

Recent drilling at Iron Cap, however, shows this deposit is larger and higher grade than previously thought.

A 10,383-meter drill program completed in 2017 tested highly prospective targets discovered in the final hole drilled in 2016. This hole, IC-16-62, cut 555.2 meters grading 0.83 g/t gold, 0.24 percent copper and 4.4 g/t silver in the Lower Iron Cap zone and a shallower blind target consisting of an incomplete interval of 60.7 meters averaging 1.2 g/t gold.

Highlights from the 11 holes drilled last year include:

• 422.5 meters of 1.04 g/t gold and 0.32 percent copper in IC-17-65;

• 137.7 meters of 1.56 g/t gold and 0.29 percent copper, 63.6 meter of 4.77 g/t gold and 0.01 percent copper and 876.9 meter of 0.32 g/t gold and 0.37 percent copper in IC-17-66;

• 417.1 meters of 1.02 g/t gold and 0.33 percent copper in IC-17-67;

• 699.8 meters of 0.87 g/t gold, 0.51 percent copper and 2.4 g/t silver in hole IC-17-71; and

• 858.1 meters of 0.86 g/t gold, 0.51 percent copper and 2.4 g/t silver IC-17-72.

The results from the 2017 drilling are being incorporated into an updated resource estimate for KSM.

"In our view, size and grade appear to be set to rise. We now believe that exploiting Iron Cap earlier has the potential to significantly improve KSM's economics because it could defer significant capital costs and expedite better grades into the mine sequence. We are planning another program at Iron Cap this year to expand the known zones of mineralization, fill in some of the holes in past drilling and move these newly defined intervals towards reserve definition."

The Iron Cap Deposit has been permitted for block cave underground mining within the Environmental Assessment approved by provincial and federal governments in 2014.

-SHANE LASLEY

 

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