The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
35.3M tonnes of 3.39% copper, 0.039% cobalt at South Reef North of 60 Mining News – January 21, 2022
A copper- and cobalt-rich sample extracted from an exploration shaft Kennecott Exploration sunk into the Bornite deposit in Northwest Alaska during the 1960s.
Trilogy Metals Inc. Jan. 20 published an updated mineral resource estimate for Bornite that shines a spotlight on the very high copper and cobalt grades in the underground South Reef area of this world-class deposit on the Upper Kobuk Minerals Projects in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska.
Located about 15 miles southwest of Arctic, the most advanced of the UKMP projects, Bornite is a large and high-grade deposit that hosts 6.3 billion pounds of copper and 88 million lb of cobalt in high-grade near-surface and underground zones.
Trilogy says that this new estimate provides Ambler Metals LCC, a joint venture owned equally by Trilogy and South32 Ltd., something to think about as it advances Arctic into permitting and begins to once again consider Bornite.
"While our Ambler Metals Joint Venture team has been focused on the Arctic project, which is located 24 kilometers from Bornite, we want to remind investors that Bornite is also a very compelling copper-cobalt project and is one of the highest-grade undeveloped copper assets in the world," said Trilogy Metals President and CEO Tony Giardini. "We will now pass along this resource estimate to the Ambler Metals Joint Venture team which will look at ways at integrating this asset with our other assets within the UKMP."
At a cut-off grade of 0.5%, the open-pit portion of Bornite hosts 41.7 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.04% (955 million pounds) copper; and 93.9 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.98% (2.03 billion lb) copper.
At the same cut-off grade, the Bornite open-pit also hosts 135.6 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.017% (51 million lb) cobalt.
At a cut-off grade of 1.5%, the underground Ruby zone at Bornite hosts 15 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.98% (653 million lb) copper and 0.021% (7 million lb) cobalt.
At the same cut-off grade, the underground South Reef zone hosts 35.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 3.39% (2.64 billion lb) copper and 0.039% (30 million lb) cobalt.
The Trilogy team says this estimate is meant to underscore the high-grade and bulk mineable potential at South Reef.
"The current resource update confirms the significant size and copper grades at the Bornite project and puts the spotlight on the high-grade resource in the South Reef area, which is being separately reported in the below-pit inferred resource category in this update," said Trilogy Metals Vice President of Exploration Richard Gosse. "Besides its exceptional grade, South Reef is characterized by good thickness and continuity, and its discovery in 2011, more than 60 years after copper was first discovered at Bornite, points to the excellent exploration potential for other Bornite-type deposits nearby in the Cosmos Hills and the Ambler Lowlands."
Earlier this month, Ambler Metals announced that the US$28.5 million program budgeted for UKMP this year will include exploration of Bornite-type carbonate-hosted copper-cobalt targets in the Cosmos Hills and Ambler Lowlands.
Outside of Bornite itself, this area has not been systematically explored since work was carried out by Kennecott in the 1990s. However, several copper-cobalt targets similar to Bornite, including Aurora and Pardner Hill, about three miles to the west, have been identified.
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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