The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Shifting focus to its copper projects in the American Southwest North of 60 Mining News – February 21, 2020
Roughly 1.3 billion lb of copper, 457,000 oz of gold and 70 million lb of molybdenum has been outlined in this area of the Pyramid copper project on the Alaska Peninsula.
A 15-square-mile red-stained anomaly at San Diego Bay indicates the potential of a large porphyry system at this prospective area about six miles away from Pyramid.
CopperBank Resources Corp. Feb. 14 announced the termination of its option on the Pyramid and San Diego Bay copper projects on the Alaska Peninsula.
Pyramid, a large porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum deposit about 25 miles north of the community of Sand Point, is on private lands owned by Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regional and village corporations.
Aleut Corp., the ANCSA regional corporation for the majority of the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands, owns the mineral rights to Pyramid. The Shumagin and Tanadgusix village corporations each own parts of the surface lands covering this large copper deposit.
Full Metal Minerals, which optioned Pyramid from the ANCSA regional and village corporations in 2007, was the first company to carry out systematic exploration across this property.
Founded by Gianni Kovacevic, author of "My Electrician Drives a Porsche?", CopperBank acquired the project in 2014 and continued exploration at Pyramid.
By 2018, the exploration carried out by CopperBank and its predecessors had culminated into 153.4 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.37 percent (1.26 billion pounds) copper, 0.09 g/t (457,000 oz) gold and 0.02 percent (70 million lb) molybdenum.
This deposit is located about 2.5 miles from ice-free deep tidewater on the Pacific Rim, making it ideal for shipping ore to Asian and North American markets.
In addition to drilling, geophysics and other work at Pyramid, CopperBank carried out early staged exploration at San Diego Bay, a promising but much earlier stage copper target on Aleut Corp. land about six miles to the east.
A 15-square-mile red-stained anomaly from the pervasive alteration as San Diego Bay indicates the potential of another large porphyry system near or potentially connecting to Pyramid.
Limited exploration completed has turned up some interesting results at the early stage copper target, including rock samples with grades as high as 16 percent copper and more than 1 g/t gold. This includes results from surface work carried out in 2017.
CopperBank did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the termination of the option on Pyramid and San Diego Bay.
The company did say it will now focus on its advanced development stage Copper Creek and Contact copper projects in the American Southwest. Additionally, CopperBank is looking at other possible opportunities in the Americas.
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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