The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
First ore from Fort Knox satellite expected by end of the year North of 60 Mining News – April 9, 2021
Gil-Sourdough is likely a source of the placer gold recovered by the large dredge in the drainage just below the deposits.
Looking down to the gold dredge from Gil-Sourdough.
Kinross Gold Corp. has found another source of higher-grade ore to feed the mill at Fort Knox, this time within the bounds of the company's own property about 20 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.
On April 9, the company announced that it has officially decided to develop Gil-Sourdough, a satellite gold deposit about eight miles east of the Kinross Alaska mill.
Gil-Sourdough is not a new discovery for Kinross, the company has been involved in its exploration for decades and bought full ownership of the project on the eastern edge of the Fort Knox property in 2011.
"This is a very exciting announcement for us to make, Fort Knox employees both current and past have worked on this project for a great long time," Kinross Alaska Eternal Affairs Manager Anna Atchison told Mining News.
These satellite deposits, however, did not fit into the mine plan until the recent Kinross Alaska strategy that leverages the underutilized 14-million-metric-ton-per-year mill at the Interior Alaska gold mine.
"While the Gil deposit has been part of the company resource portfolio for many years, it is only with the recent paradigm shift to leverage the Fort Knox mill and today's continued strong gold price environment that the company sees a timely opportunity for development," Atchison said.
In preparation for this Fort Knox Alaska strategy, which involves seeking higher-grade ore from projects within a roughly 300-mile radius of Fort Knox, Kinross invested heavily in dewatering the current tailings storage facility and gained permits to begin stacking tailings in the pit that has been providing ore to the mill and heap leach pads at Fort Knox for the past 25 years.
This greatly expands the room to store tailings from milling higher-grade ores, a limitation that contributed to previous plans to wind down mill operations this year.
Looking for ore to feed the excess mill and tailings capacity, Kinross has decided to mine Gil-Sourdough, which hosts 29.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.56 grams per metric ton (533,000 ounces) gold.
The company, however, does not currently plan to mine the entire resource. Instead, the Gil-Sourdough development plan is expected to start with mining roughly 10 million metric tons of the resource from smaller pits at an average mined grade of 0.60 g/t gold or roughly 193,000 oz of gold. At current mill recovery rates of around 83%, Gil-Sourdough is expected to contribute roughly 160,000 oz of gold to Fort Knox production over a span of about two years.
With Gil-Sourdough located on the property and an existing road connecting the deposits to the mill, this ore can quickly be delivered into the Fort Knox Alaska strategy. Kinross has already applied for permits for mining the satellite deposits, basically a quarry operation that will deliver ore to the already permitted milling operation.
This means that the first Gil-Sourdough ore could be delivered to the Fort Knox mill by the end of next year.
In addition to providing feedstock for the mill, this mining will add new jobs at Fort Knox. While the current crews at Fort Knox continue to mine the Gilmore expansion and stack ore on the newly constructed Barnes Creek Heap Leach Facility, contractors will carry out the mining at Gil-Sourdough.
The current mine plan for Gil-Sourdough dovetails nicely with Manh Choh (formerly Peak Gold), another facet of the Kinross Alaska strategy.
Located about 200 miles southeast of Fort Knox, Manh Choh hosts 9.2 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 4.08 grams per metric ton (1.21 million ounces) gold and 14.19 g/t (4.2 million oz) silver in two adjacent deposits on the project.
With the idea of processing high-grade ore from Manh Choh in the mill at Fort Knox, Kinross paid US$93.7 million to buy a 70% interest in this project from Contango Ore Inc.
Prior to agreeing to acquire a stake in Manh Choh, Kinross met with the people of Tetlin and members of the village council, the underlying landowners of 675,000 acres of land that make up the project. As a result, Tetlin Village continues to indicate support for the project plan based on transparent, strong partnerships that focus on trust and mutual respect.
"We look forward to the safe and responsible development of the project and the positive benefits it is expected to generate for our community," said Chief Sam. "We also look forward to further building a relationship with Kinross, a company with a strong track record in Alaska."
Kinross anticipates the first ore from Manh Choh to Fort Knox in 2024, or about the time the last of the Gil-Sourdough ore is processed through the Kinross Alaska mill.
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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