Nixon Fork mine could be small but sweet

The sound of drilling can be heard all over Alaska, on old properties as well as new ones. Nixon Fork, 35 miles northeast of McGrath in the Kuskokwim mineral belt, is one of the old ones. It is showing new potential, according to Bill Burnett and Paul Jones of Mystery Creek Resources, who hope to start mine development and production there in summer 2006. Mystery Creek Resources is a subsidiary of Ontario-based St. Andrew Goldfields.

Much mining has been done at Nixon Fork over the years, since placer gold was first discovered in 1917 and lode gold in 1918. Mystery Creek arrived on the scene in 2003. The following year they drilled 14,600 meters on two ore bodies, 80 percent of which was definition drilling, Burnett told the Alaska Miners Association convention Nov. 4. "We had some oxidized ore and some sulphide ore and that kind of poses some unique milling situations," Burnett said. "Additionally in 2004 we did some surface work… we did some trenching, we drilled one hole and blended some samples."

This year Mystery Creek has done another 8,600 meters of underground drilling as well as 3,300 meters of surface drilling and the work is ongoing. In February a resource estimate came out at 242,000 tons, containing 161,000 ounces of gold. Some of that is inferred and some is in existing tailings. "Our resources are not as great as we hoped they would be a couple of years ago," Jones said. "They may grow, as we're not through with exploration work." The current plan is to produce 40,000 to 50,000 ounces of gold a year and 1.2 million pounds of copper.

In final stages of permitting

"We're in the very final stages, as we hope, of the permitting process," Jones said. Mystery Creek plans to increase the size of the diesel power plant from what was previously used, so they had to acquire a new air permit, which was received earlier this year. The public review process for the plan of operations, the closure plan and reclamation estimate and the solid waste disposal permits - the key permits for the operation - ended in late November.

"I would hope we'll have our permits in place by the end of the year," Jones told the convention. "If that be the case, we would start cleaning up the old mill and renovating the old mill - it's in pretty sad shape, but it's repairable. We'd start sometime in January on that. We would begin building the cyanide circuit as soon as the weather allows us to do that, with the idea of trying to get tailings from the existing pond into that plant as early as we can in the summer."

Mystery Creek plans to try lode gold mining. "It'll cause dilution, but we think the cost-effectiveness of lode gold mining versus cut and fill will be preferable, and that's what we're going to try to start with," Jones said. Some of the stopes will probably have to be cut and fill mining as they did in the past."