The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drilling continues to merge gold-rich zones at Brewery Creek North of 60 Mining News – March 13, 2020
Looking over the development camp at Brewery Creek towards the Reserve trend on this road accessible gold mine project about 34 miles east of Dawson City, Yukon.
Golden Predator Mining Corp. March 11 said drilling continues to merge what was previously interpreted to be a series of smaller pods of gold mineralization along the Reserve trend at Brewery Creek into a continuous zone that has now been traced for roughly 3,100 meters across this mine project about a 45-minute drive from Dawson City, Yukon.
Viceroy Resource Corp. established a mine at Brewery Creek in 1996 and recovered around 280,000 ounces of gold from the open-pit, heap-leach operation over seven years. With gold prices averaging around US$310/oz in 2002, Viceroy opted to wind down operations at Brewery Creek and put the seasonal gold mine on care and maintenance.
The latest batch of assay results are from step-out drill holes at Lucky Zone, which hosts a historically mined pit at the northeast end of the Reserve trend.
Golden Predator said these 20 holes, 19 of which tapped significant gold grades, confirm the continuation of mineralization below the historic Lucky pit and extend the zone 100 meters further to the southwest.
Highlighted intercepts from this drilling include:
• 36.6 meters of 1.73 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 45.7 meters in hole RC19-2673.
• 13.7 meters of 1.12 g/t gold from a depth of 62.5 meters in RC19-2674.
"We continue to see previous small pits coalescing into larger continuous mineralization across the Reserve trend," said Golden Predator Mining CEO Janet Lee-Sheriff. "These observations are making Brewery Creek a larger and much more attractive project than previously envisioned."
According to a calculation completed in January, Brewery Creek hosts 21.14 million metric tons of indicated oxide resource averaging 1.13 g/t (765,000 oz) gold, a 55 percent increase over the last calculation completed in 2014.
Brewery creek also hosts 14.12 million metric tons of inferred oxide resource averaging 0.97 g/t (440,000 oz) gold, a 78 percent increase in contained gold.
This resource, however, does not include the results from the 177 holes Golden Predator drilled last year at the project.
A new resource that includes the 2019 drilling is expected to be completed in the second quarter. This is expected to form the basis for a feasibility study that outlines plans to resume mining at Brewery Creek.
"Our ongoing work to complete the restart feasibility study in April 2020 is also beginning to consider a much larger project going forward," said Lee-Sheriff.
It is anticipated that this restart will be ramped up in phases, based on the permits that are already in place.
The initial phase of this plan is expected to involve the reprocessing of material on the original heap leach pad where, according to Viceroy's records, roughly 10 million metric tons of run-of-mine ore averaging 1.5 g/t gold sits. This comes to 525,094 oz of gold stacked on the pad. This leaves nearly 248,000 oz of gold on the pad, when you subtract the metal recovered by Viceroy.
According to previously announced plans, the second phase would involve mining in areas covered by existing Quartz Mining License and Water License. These licenses were deemed valid by the Yukon government last year.
Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation passed a formal council resolution in support of resumed mining and processing at the Brewery Creek Mine under these existing licenses.
Once mining is established, Golden Predator plans to expand operations to the larger Reserve trend and other areas of the property. This phase would require additional permitting.
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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