Neighboring prospects get new look

In his first season as the Alaska and Russia exploration manager for Kinross Gold, Rich Harris will be spending about $2.5 million on exploration in 2004, mostly for early-stage prospects neighboring the company's Fort Knox and True North mines northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Final budgets for several projects, including three prospects neighboring True North and three others in the Fort Knox/Gil area, are still pending, Harris said in interviews June 1 and June 5.

"Everything is being reevaluated locally. We're looking at the whole approach to see if we need to make some changes," he said. "It's a time of big changes ... we're re-looking at the whole district and properties to see the possibilities out there."

In late April, Kinross lured Harris away from his most recent position as minerals development specialist for the Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development, counting on his past experience in the Interior with Newmont Gold, primarily as project geologist at True North before Kinross acquired the property.

His fresh view of Kinross properties provides some broader thinking, geologically, that he hopes will translate into some new discoveries.

"No one had stepped back to look at the bigger picture. You get so you can't see the forest for the trees - so burrowed in," he said. "I think that's one reason why I got the position, to provide a new look - to have someone with another view and different background."

One significant change is scaling back development work and infill drilling at Gil. Instead, work this summer will focus on finding nearby mineralized areas for additional targets. (See sidebar.)

In-pit exploration expands

Exploration work that has already started includes a $1 million drilling program to further define targets within and adjacent to the existing Fort Knox pit.

Harris said about 15,000 feet of core samples and 5,000 feet of reverse-circulation samples will be drilled this year as part of the in-pit exploration effort. Some holes will be drilled from the lowest level of the pit, to see if recoverable mineralization exists at depth. Other holes will be drilled to look for extensions of mineralization to the east, south and west. The goal is to find additional gold to mine and mill, extending the life of Fort Knox beyond the current 2009-2010 ending currently projected.

"A conservative number might be 50,000 to 100,000 ounces (of additional gold), but obviously we hope to increase that as much as we can," Harris said. "Some drilling is directed towards increasing the size of the ultimate pit ... a little deeper and pushing out a bit, but there are a lot of variables."

Last year, Kinross said it spent $710,000 on its in-pit exploration program, part of the company's $3.2 million spent on exploration in Alaska. This year's program is changing slightly, with some expansion drilling, Harris said.

"Most of the core drilling is directed toward pit expansion," he said. "The reverse circulation holes are on the perimeter ... (they are) expansion targets. We're stepping out from the pit."

Those extension holes will include two drill holes to the west, where the Fort Knox claim block adjoins federally controlled land associated with the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, also called NOAA.

Kinross' subsidiary, Fairbanks Gold Mining Inc., drilled seven reverse circulation holes on that property in 2003. While specific results were not released, the company said in late January that mineralization traced to the adjacent NOAA property could not be pulled into the Fort Knox pit design.

True North area prospects

New attention will be given this year to four prospects neighboring the True North mine, a satellite deposit about 10 miles from Fort Knox that has provided additional mill feed at Fort Knox since 2001.

Harris came to Alaska in the early 1990s to work on the True North prospect for Newmont Gold, which later sold its interest in the property to Kinross. Now the exploration work has a specific goal-to provide additional mill feed at Fort Knox.

"It's close enough to True North that if we identify something, we could fast-track it to the mining stage," Harris said.

Those neighboring prospects include Treasure Creek and Vault Creek, 15 to 20 miles northwest of Fort Knox and west of True North, west of the Elliott Highway.

The third prospect, Newsboy, is on the north side of Pedro Dome, adjacent to the Steese Highway. Harris described it as a "fairly robust soil anomaly," which should see some reverse circulation drilling this year, as well as at Treasure Creek and Vault Creek.

The fourth prospect is adjacent to True North, south of the existing mill site lease boundary, according to the company's exploration application filed with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources on May 20.

A fifth prospect, Alder Creek, is considered more of a grassroots exploration property. It is roughly 10 miles north of Fort Knox. Harris plans some soil sampling on that geological play this year.

In its state exploration application, Fairbanks Gold requested permission to drill up to 30 holes annually, with a maximum depth of 600 feet, on these five prospects. They also requested permission to cut up to 10 trenches, up to 50 feet long, 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep.

"Plans for this year are some soil sampling and mapping where possible, perhaps some drilling," Harris said. "These are grassroots properties ... an area with some obviously placer goal potential, where Chatanika terrain rocks are poorly exposed."