The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
CopperBank Resources Corp. March 7 said it has hired DOWL, an Alaska-based engineering firm, to provide initial infrastructure planning for Pyramid, an advanced exploration project on the Alaska Peninsula that hosts 172.8 million metric tons of inferred resources, averaging 0.35 percent (1.34 billion pounds) copper, 0.02 percent (74.4 million lbs) molybdenum and 0.09 grams per metric tons (488,000 ounces) gold.
“Three very important components of any copper project of merit are geology, location and access to infrastructure,” explained CopperBank Executive Chairman Gianni Kovacevic.
Pyramid is situated less than five miles from deep tidewater on the Pacific Rim, a great location for shipping copper to Asia or the Americas. In February, CopperBank strengthened its geological team by adding Brigitte Dejou to its board of directors and Colin Burge as a technical advisor.
Dejou has 25 years of experience in mineral exploration, including 18 years with Teck Resources and two years of evaluating new projects for Osisko Mining. She has managed a variety of exploration projects from grassroots to pre-feasibility across North America. This includes time at the Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska, where she was instrumental in the discovery of the Aktigiruk zinc deposit.
Burge is a discovery oriented exploration geologist with 30 years’ experience in project development with First Quantum Minerals and predecessor companies. He was part of a corporate development team at Inmet Mining that discovered and delineated more than 30 billion pounds of copper at the Cobre Panama project, leading to First Quantum Minerals’ $5 billion dollar acquisition of Inmet. Dejou and Burge’s geological experience will be helpful as CopperBank advances exploration at Pyramid and San Diego Bay, an early stage copper prospect about four miles southwest of Pyramid.
“We have established a strong technical team to further assess the geological opportunity at the still open Pyramid deposit, and the San Diego Bay prospect seven kilometers to the west,” said Kovacevic. “As for infrastructure, it is never too early in the life of a project to begin to understand how critical components, namely power and port facilities, would look like and potentially be situated.”
DOWL will assist CopperBank in developing an early stage understanding for key infrastructure components such as potential port site locations, on-site power generating options, and supporting road network.
"This is a great opportunity to leverage DOWL's infrastructure expertise in Alaska,” said DOWL President and COO Stewart Osgood. “Working at the very early planning stages of any project is a great fit for DOWL's depth of project experience, and clearly demonstrates CopperBank's commitment to partner with Alaskan firms."
-SHANE LASLEY
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