The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2019 – Published Nov. 1, 2019
Golden Predator's camp at Brewery Creek is serving as the headquarters for exploration and other activities aimed at resuming mining of this gold project about 34 miles east of Dawson City, Yukon.
Golden Predator Mining Corp. is advancing two gold properties in the Yukon – the Brewery Creek Mine project about 55 kilometers (34 miles) east of Dawson City and the 3 Aces high-grade gold exploration project in the southeastern part of the territory.
This year, the company's primary focus is on Brewery Creek, the site of a former mine where Viceroy Resource Corp. produced 280,000 ounces of gold from 1996 to 2002. This operation used heap leaping – a method of gold recovery that involves stacking ore in a lined facility and using cyanide to separate the gold from the rock – to recover gold mined from seven near-surface deposits on the property.
With gold prices averaging around US$310/oz in 2002, Viceroy opted to wind down operations and put Brewery Creek on care and maintenance.
Since acquiring Brewery Creek roughly a decade ago, Golden Predator has been carrying out exploration and studies aimed at resuming operations at the past producing mine.
A 2014 preliminary economic assessment outlined plans for a heap-leach operation that would produce an estimated 372,000 oz of gold over eight years. This includes mining 10.2 million metric tons of open-pit material from eight deposits averaging 1.35 g/t gold and reprocessing material located on the former heap leach pad.
In August, Golden Predator formerly informed the Yukon government of its plans to resume operations at Brewery Creek. With the territory's acceptance of this notice, the junior mining company has the permits and authorizations needed to begin development.
This move has the support of Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, which passed a formal council resolution in support of resumed mining and processing at the Brewery Creek Mine under the existing licenses.
"With gold prices picking up, a low capex and short timeline to production combined with the support of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in and Yukon Government, Golden Predator will accelerate its activities and advance the timelines at the Brewery Creek Mine," said Golden Predator Mining CEO Janet Lee-Sheriff.
This plan has strong support from the investment community, including noted mining investor Eric Sprott, who participated in a C$9.3 million Golden Predator financing that closed in July.
While advancing Brewery Creek toward production, Golden Predator is carrying out more than 6,000 meters of drilling to expand and upgrade the resource.
According to a 2014 estimate, Brewery Creek hosts 14.15 million metric tons of indicated oxide resource averaging 1.27 g/t (577,000 oz) gold, 9.31 million metric tons of inferred oxide resource averaging 0.93 g/t (279,000 oz) gold; plus 3.46 million metric tons of indicated sulfide resource averaging 1.28 g/t (142,000 oz) gold, and 12.41 million metric tons of inferred sulfide resource averaging 1.37 g/t (546,000 oz) gold.
Out of this overall resource only about half of the oxide gold mineralization is considered in the PEA. The rest is outside of the current permitted area and will be part of the longer term mine plan and amended mining permits.
While getting Brewery Creek ready for operations, Golden Predator is recovering a little gold at 3 Aces.
In February, the company reported the recovery of 365 troy oz of gold and 34 oz of silver from roughly 600 metric tons of bulk sample material collected from this high-grade project in southeast Yukon.
This sampling, completed at the end of 2018, represents about 6 percent of the 9,800 metric tons of bulk sample material stockpiled last year.
This material was excavated from a series of two-meter benches at Spades, one of the high-grade gold zones identified within the central core area of the 3 Aces project.
Though Golden Predator has completed tightly spaced drilling at the Spades zone, the company says bulk sampling has exposed previously unknown vein orientations and veining, resulting in new geological information from the early stages of the bulk sampling.
The company resumed processing bulk sample material from the 2018 stockpile in April. This sampling is being carried out with a small gravity recovery operation at the project.
An additional bulk sample of up to 10,000 metric tons of the high-grade gold vein material at 3 Aces is expected to get underway before the end of 2019.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For an update on Golden Predator's 2019 progress at Brewery Creek, see Brewery Creek Mine restart accelerates in the Nov. 1 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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