Alaska mining news and trends from geologist Curt Freeman

As is always the case this time of year, many of the season's exploration and development programs are completed or nearing completion and the results of those programs are trickling in. In addition, second quarter 2001 operating results are in for Alaska's major mines, all of which are doing well despite depressed prices for all of the metals they produce. The state's most active areas include the Seward Peninsula, Interior Alaska and southeast Alaska.

Here is what's going on.

Western Alaska

Cominco American's Red Dog mine felt the pinch of depressed zinc prices resulting in a significant drop in second quarter 2001 profits. Average zinc prices for the quarter were US42 cents per pound, an 18 percent decrease over a year ago. The mine generated 130,100 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 24,800 tonnes of lead concentrate while earning a $3 million operating profit. The annual shipping season from the Red Dog port facility began on July 8 and the company expects to ship 950,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 140,000 tonnes of lead concentrate before the port closes for the season.

NovaGold Resources said it has signed the final agreement allowing it to acquire an interest in the Donlin Creek gold deposit from Placer Dome and the underlying land owner, Calista Corp. The company also announced that additional metallurgical work was being conducted by McClelland Labs and that it would initiate a $3 million, 15,000 meter core drilling program on the property in August.

The goal of this drilling is to better define the controls and distribution of high grade zones within the Donlin Creek deposit.

This drilling will also help explore an east-west trending antiformal structure discovered during three-dimensional resource modeling conducted by NovaGold.

Current higher grade reserves stand at 3.1 million ounces grading 5.2 grams of gold per tonne using a lower grade cut-off of 3.5 grams per tonne.

Property expenditures to date total $37 million and include 110,000 meters of drilling, 28,500 meters of trenching and extensive ground and airborne geophysical surveys.

Navigator Exploration Corp. announced that its partner, Chapleau Resources is planning to reassay core from the Kougarok tantalum - tin property on the Seward Peninsula. Chapleau also will conduct additional surface mapping and sampling and may initiate new drilling this season.

The Tundra Telegraph says that Placer Dome conducted limited exploration in the Solomon and Big Hurrah areas of the Seward Peninsula. Its efforts combined with those of Greatland Exploration at its Omalik lead - zinc - silver property and Altar Resources at a series of gold and base metal properties have made Nome the hottest exploration venue in Alaska.

Eastern Interior

Kinross Gold reported second quarter results from its Fort Knox and True North operations.

The mine produced 104,743 ounces of gold at a total cash cost of $193 compared to 83,825 ounces of gold at a total cash cost of $214 per ounce during the second quarter of 2000.

Total production costs were $300 per ounce versus $304 per ounce for the second quarter of 2000.

During the second quarter the mill processed 3.5 million tonnes of ore grading 1.06 grams of gold per tonne compared to 3.4 million tonnes milled at a grade of 0.89 grams of gold per tonne during the second quarter of 2000.

Gold recovery was down slightly at 86 percent and mine site cash expenditures were $2.5 million, most of which was for construction of the haulage road connecting the True North satellite open pit to the Fort Knox mill.

Exploration drilling at True North continued to return promising results.

Since November 2000 a total of 193 rotary and core holes have been completed at True North and 144,000 ounces of new resource has been added to the previously existing 611,000 probable reserve category.

In addition, a new mineralized zone, known as the West Zeppelin zone, was discovered and promises to add to the resource base at True North.

Current year-end production forecasts for the Fort Knox - True North operation are approximately 440,000 ounces of gold.

Teck Corp. said that permitting and mine feasibility work are continuing at its Pogo gold deposit. Feasibility work included development of underground mine plans, mill design and costing and construction planning. The preliminary draft environmental impact statement for the proposed mine operations is expected to be released later this year.

Western Keltic Mines and Rimfire Minerals reported that drilling started in late July on their Boundary Zone prospect in the Goodpaster District. The companies completed mapping, soil sampling and 830 line kilometers of airborne magnetics and radiometrics earlier this year.

North Star Exploration completed drilling on its Road Metal prospect near Northway. Drilling results have not been released.

The Tundra Telegraph said that Teck Corp. has completed work on its Napoleon gold project near Chicken and that Kennecott Exploration has completed work on its Uncle Sam project in the Richardson District. Kennecott is reported to be continuing field efforts at its Faith Creek project in the Circle District, NovaGold Resources is planning to conduct exploration of its Caribou gold project in the Richardson District and International Freegold is planing to conduct drilling at the Currey zone on its Golden Summit project in the Fairbanks District.

Alaska Range

Usibelli Coal Mine has applied for an extension of its mine permit on the Wishbone Hill coal project near Sutton. The current permit was issued on a 1,285 acre area in 1991. The new extension would be for an additional 5-year period. The permit applies to a one million ton per year surface mine operation envisioned for Wishbone Hill. And before anyone gets their knickers in a knot, I do realize that Wishbone Hill is not in the Alaska Range…….

Grayd Resources commenced fieldwork in late July on its White Gold project under option to Placer Dome. The current program is focused on the southern portion of the trend and is intended to evaluate the strike potential of previously discovered mineralization. Work planned for 2001 includes geological mapping, sampling, Max-Min and magnetics geophysics and hand trenching. To date over 1,000 soil and rock samples have been collected and of the 529 soil results that have been returned, 198 have assayed greater than 100 parts per billion gold. These results indicate that the structures which host the Shalosky and Kokanee Hill showings extend for at least 600 meters along strike.

Latitude Minerals said efforts are underway to locate a joint venture partner for its Tonsina platinum group element property. Previous work in the Sheep Hill and Bernard Mountain areas of the project have returned anomalous platinum group element values in ultramafic rocks of the Tonsina complex.

Southeast Alaska

Kennecott (70.3 percent) and Hecla (29.7 percent) released second quarter 2001 production from the Greens Creek mine on Admiralty Island. The total cash cost per ounce of silver at Greens Creek for the quarter was $2.48, a significant increase over the $1.99 per ounce total cost for the second quarter of 2000. The average grade of ore mined was 21.44 ounces of silver per ton. During the second quarter the mine produced 2,555,035 ounces of silver, 20,477 ounces of gold, 5,832 tons of lead and 16,730 tons of zinc. Total production costs for the quarter were $4.95 per ounce of silver produced.

Quaterra Resources reported additional results from its Union Bay platinum group metal property in Southeast Alaska.

Reconnaissance scale mapping and sampling have resulted in discovery of two new zones of mineralization in addition to the North Zone discovered in 2000.

Values in excess of 1 gram per tonne platinum plus palladium have been delineated over a strike length of 1,300 feet on the North Zone, over 1,200 feet on the newly discovered Jaguar zone located 1,000 feet west of the North zone; and over 450 feet on the newly discovered Lexus zone located one mile west of the North zone.

A fourth potential discovery was recently made on the BMW zone located over two miles west of the North zone and traceable at surface for over 2,500 feet.

Assays are expected from the BMW zone in early August.

Each of the four zones is open-ended.

Four saw channels were cut in the North Zone where previous rock chip sampling showed high grade PGE values.

Two adjacent one-foot channel samples returned 7.9 grams per tonne platinum plus palladium while another sample on the same channel returned 5.0 grams per tonne platinum plus palladium.

Data from pan concentrate samples collected in 2001 confirmed previous sample results and extended the anomalous areas beyond those previously known.

Quaterra plans to conduct diamond drilling on the project in late August.

Other news

Steve Denton has been appointed general manager of Usibelli Coal Mine's Healy mine operations. Congratulations Steve!

Cominco American said that Bob Jacko has been appointed general manager at Red Dog mine to replace John Key who is taking over the same position at a new mine being constructed in Minnesota. Congratulations Bob and John!

The University of Alaska announced that Sukumar Bondopadhyay has been appoint Interim Dean of the School of Mineral Engineering and Paul Metz has been appoint Department Head of the Mining and Geological Engineering Department. Congratulations Sukumar and Paul!

Steve Borell, the executive director of the Alaska Miners Association sent me an article entitled "Rural Cleansing". It was written by Kimberly Strassel and published in her OpinionJournal.com column in the July 26 edition of the Wall Street Journal. If you want to see what environmentalism gone amok is doing to our world and the sickening legacy we are leaving our children, look at this article. What was once a sincere desire to clean up our environment and maximize the use of our natural resources has become corrupted into a multi-billion dollar industry whose ultimate goal is to eliminate all human impacts … and the humans that cause it.

Editor's note: This mining news update was prepared by Curt Freeman in mid-August.