The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – November 23, 2018
Skeena Resources phase I program at Eskay Creek focused on upgrading the high-grade gold silver resource this property is known for and collecting material for metallurgical work on this past producing mine property.
Skeena Resources Ltd. reported additional strong gold-silver results from its phase-I drill program at Eskay Creek, including one hole that cut 31.5 meters averaging 10.16 grams per metric ton gold and 331 g/t silver.
This initial phase of drilling is designed to infill and upgrade areas of inferred resources in three zones at Eskay Creek – 21A, 21C and 22 – as well to collect fresh material for an upcoming metallurgical study for this historical mine property in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Highlights from this latest batch of results is from seven holes targeting 21A include:
• 42 meters of 5.28 g/t gold and 62 g/t silver from a depth of 38 meters in hole SK-18-020;
• 20.18 meters of 10.31 g/t gold and 73 g/t silver from a depth of 104.32 meter in SK-18-021;
• 10.5 meters of 13.4 g/t gold and 1 g/t silver from a depth of 110 meter in SK-18-022;
• 31.5 meters of 10.16 g/t gold and 331 g/t silver from a depth of 96.5 meter in SK-18-023; and
• 11.5 meters of 8.82 g/t gold and 97 g/t silver from a depth of 114 meter in SK-18-024.
Skeena Resources said this initial phase of drilling was designed to infill and upgrade the inferred resource in the 21A Zone by increasing drill density to 20-meter intercept spacing. This spacing will allow for future economic analyses and is providing fresh material for an upcoming metallurgical characterization and testing program.
With most of the intercepts being encountered within 125 meters from surface, Skeena said the 21A zone should be suitable for open-pit mining.
According to a resource calculation completed for Skeena in September, Eskay Creek hosts 1.09 million metric tons of open-pit indicated resource averaging 4.9 g/t (173,000 ounces) gold and 72 g/t (2.53 million oz) silver; plus 4.26 million metric tons of open-pit inferred resource averaging 4.3 g/t (458,000 oz) gold and 72 g/t (9.81 million oz) silver.
The 21A Zone represents a significant portion of this pit-constrained resource.
In addition, Eskay Creek hosts 2.51 million metric tons of underground indicated resource averaging 7.2 g/t (582,000 oz) gold and 215 g/t (17.34 million oz) silver; plus 812,000 metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 7.2 g/t (187,000 oz) gold and 214 g/t (5.59 million oz) silver.
Due to the onset of winter at Eskay Creek, Skeena said the phase I drill program there has been paused until conditions improve. So far, the company has completed the planned phase-I drilling in the 21A and 21C zones but is only 30 percent finished with the infill drilling planned for 22 Zone. The two rigs testing Eskay Creek have been moved to Snip, another historic Golden Triangle gold mine project owned by Skeena.
Skeena plans to complete 2,000 meters of surface exploration drilling targeting previously untested soil anomalies at Snip, as well as depth extensions of two high-grade underground gold targets – Twin Zone and 200 Footwall.
Skeena Resources acquired Snip from Barrick Gold Corp. and has cut a deal to also acquire Eskay Creek from the major. Both properties host high-grade gold mines operated by Barrick in the 1990s and closed due to low gold prices.
The underground mine at Snip produced 1.1 million oz of gold from 1.25 million metric tons of ore averaging 27.5 g/t gold.
Eskay Creek produced roughly 3.3 million oz of gold and 160 million oz of silver from ore that averaged 45 g/t gold and 2,224 g/t silver, which at the time made it the world's highest-grade gold mine and fifth-largest silver mine by volume.
–SHANE LASLEY
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