The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
2021 drilling shows that Mitchell, Snowfield are one deposit North of 60 Mining News – February 4, 2022
Workers investigate Seabridge Gold's expanded KSM copper-gold-silver project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Seabridge Gold Inc. Feb. 1 reported that its 2021 drilling at KSM shows that its new 25.9-million-ounce Snowfield deposit is essentially a continuation of its 34.3-million-oz Mitchell deposit, which bodes well for incorporating Snowfield into a prefeasibility study that considers an even larger mine at KSM.
A 2016 PFS detailed plans for a mine at KSM that would produce an average of 540,000 oz gold, 156 million lb copper, 2.2 million oz silver, and 1.2 million lb molybdenum annually over a 53-year mine life.
Mitchell, the largest of the four deposits in the KSM mine plan, hosts 1.8 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 0.59 grams per metric ton (34.3 million oz) gold, 0.17% (6.6 billion lb) copper, 3.1 g/t (179 million oz) silver, and 58 ppm (230 million lb) molybdenum.
Toward the end of 2020, Seabridge acquired Snowfield, a large gold deposit immediately east of Mitchell, from Pretium Resources Inc.
According to a calculation prior to Seabridge's acquisition, Snowfield hosts 1.37 billion metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 0.59 g/t (25.92 million oz) gold, 1.72 g/t (75.8 million oz) silver, 0.1% (2.98 billion pounds) copper, 85.5 parts per million (258.3 million lb) molybdenum, and 0.51 ppm (22.5 million oz) rhenium.
Seabridge reports that the 2021 drill program has validated the integration of the Snowfield deposit into the KSM mine plan. Geological modeling shows the Snowfield deposit is the upper part of the Mitchell deposit with essentially identical controls on metal distribution and complementary metallurgy, enabling a combined surface mining scenario for initial production at KSM.
"The critical objective for our 2021 drill program at KSM was to demonstrate the ability to merge our Snowfield deposit into the greater KSM Project. This objective was met and our confidence is now very high that the Snowfield deposit, acquired by Seabridge in 2020, will support a reshaping of the project which is likely to enhance gold reserves, projected annual gold production and payback while also deferring capital expenditures associated with block-cave development," said Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk. "Affirmation is expected late in the second quarter when a new KSM preliminary feasibility study is scheduled for completion."
With Snowfield so intricately connected to Mitchell, Seabridge has decided to rename the deposit, East Mitchell.
Seabridge says understanding the relationship between Mitchell and East Mitchell provides several synergies for progressing an updated resource estimation for incorporation into the updated PFS. Block dimensions will be consistent between these deposits, and search strategies for populating grade blocks will be more similar than in the past.
Confirming the relationship between Mitchell and East Mitchell deposits has also identified a nearly 3,000-meter-long vertical exposure of a giant gold-copper porphyry system. This has permitted a better understanding of the vertical zonation of metals and hydrothermal alteration at KSM.
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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