Iron Cap expansion mission accomplished

Seabridge Gold Inc. March 12 reported its 2018 drilling has added nearly 8 million ounces of gold and 4 billion pounds of copper to Iron Cap, one of four deposits that make up the company's KSM project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.

Iron Cap now hosts 423 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.41 grams per metric ton (5.58 million oz) gold, 0.22 percent (2.05 billion lb) copper, 4.6 g/t (62.56 million oz) silver and 41 parts per million (38 million lb) molybdenum; plus 1.9 billion metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.45 g/t (27.47 million oz) gold, 0.3 percent (12.56 billion lb) copper, 2.6 g/t (158.74 million oz) silver and 30 ppm (126 million lb) molybdenum.

These resources incorporate 20,341 meters of core drilling completed in 18 holes at Iron Cap last year with the previous drilling into this increasingly important KSM deposit.

"These resource additions once again have met our annual corporate objective of increasing gold ownership on a per share basis," said Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk. "We added 0.46 million ounces of indicated gold resources and 7.5 million ounces of inferred gold resources from our 2018 program."

The financings carried out last year, which raised the money needed to add this gold, increased its outstanding shares by about 3.5 million.

"Enhancing shareholder ownership of gold resources remains a governing principle for our company and 2018 marks another successful year in achieving this self-imposed discipline," Fronk added.

Seabridge also took a major step towards achieving another goal – growing Iron Cap to the size needed to consider moving this deposit earlier into the proposed mine plan for KSM.

The four deposits that make up the KSM project – Kerr, Sulphurets, Mitchell and Iron Cap – encompass 2.2 billion metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.55 g/t (38.8 million oz) gold, 0.21 percent (10.2 billion pounds) copper, 2.6 g/t (183 million oz) silver, and 42.6 parts per million (207 million lb) molybdenum.

These reserves support a 53-year mine that would average 540,000 oz gold, 156 million lb copper, 2.2 million oz silver, and 1.2 million lb molybdenum per year, according to a 2016 prefeasibility study.

At the time of the PEA, the potential of Iron Cap was not fully understood, and this deposit wasn't slated to be mined until about 32 years into the life of a proposed operation for KSM.

This deposit, however, is closer to infrastructure than Kerr and Sulphurets and has the right geometry to consider being mined by block caving, a bulk underground mining technique. Due to these advantages, since the PEA was completed Seabridge has largely focused on investigating whether Iron Cap had the size and grade to be considered for mining earlier in the mine plan.

With the latest resource upgrade, the company believes the expanding deposit is on that threshold.

"Our exploration success at Iron Cap over the past two years gives us greater flexibility to optimize project economics," said Fronk. "Iron Cap is closer to infrastructure than Kerr and Sulphurets and its development could be faster and less costly. Within the 1.9 billion tonnes (metric tons) of inferred resource, there exist significantly higher grade underground cave opportunities with substantial tonnage. Iron Cap clearly has the size and grade to justify early inclusion in the mining sequence. From our point of view, this is mission accomplished."

–SHANE LASLEY