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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Plans mill expansion, 200,000m of 2022 drilling at new BC mine North of 60 Mining News – March 11, 2022
An aerial view of Newcrest Mining's newly acquired Brucejack gold mine in British Columbia's prolific Golden Triangle.
An expansive drill program completed by Pretium last year has outlined the significant resource expansion potential at Valley of the Kings and surrounding targets.
Brucejack Mine in British Columbia's Golden Triangle is expected to push Newcrest Mining Ltd.'s annual gold production north of 2 million ounces per year, and that does not include the likely production boosts that will be created by an optimization and expansion program being launched at the newest addition to the Australian miner's portfolio.
On March 9, Newcrest's roughly US$2.8 billion acquisition of Pretium Resources Inc. was finalized, a milestone that is expected to immediately add roughly 300,000 oz per year to Newcrest's annual gold production and create Northern BC synergies worth roughly US$12 to US$16 million per year.
"We are delighted to reach this major milestone and I welcome our new shareholders, employees, First Nations partners, local communities and business partners resulting from the transaction," Newcrest Mining CEO Sandeep Biswas said upon the finalization of the Pretium acquisition. "Through this acquisition and the continued development of our outstanding organic growth pipeline, Newcrest's base case gold production is expected to remain strong until at least 2030, and we have a range of further upside opportunities being progressed across the portfolio."
This growth potential includes an array of opportunities the company has identified to maximize the long-term potential and value of Brucejack. Building on the strong foundation established by Pretium, Newcrest has initiated a three-phase plan to unlock the full potential of the high-grade underground gold mine and the district-scale property it is located on.
"We will pursue efficiencies to simplify mining and increase productivity through a holistic view of the Brucejack operations and orebody," said Biswas. "In parallel, our exploration team will be progressing an extensive drilling campaign across the Brucejack mineral claims which make up one of the largest epithermal footprints we have ever seen."
Optimizing Brucejack
Newcrest's holistic approach at Brucejack begins with bolstering the safety and implementing cutting-edge technologies at the underground mining operation.
On the safety front, Newcrest is embedding its own safety transformation plan, which is centered around the NewSafe safety and critical control management programs for high-risk tasks. The company says this will provide a framework for the next evolution of safety at Brucejack, with a focus on eliminating life-changing injuries and fatalities.
The Australian mining company is also implementing several new technologies that will improve safety, efficiency, and productivity at the underground mine.
The initial phase of technological upgrades at Brucejack is slated to include:
• Improved mine equipment tracking and monitoring via underground mine dispatch and communication capabilities.
• Progressive adoption of semi-autonomous and autonomous mining equipment.
• Asset management and asset health monitoring capabilities.
• An assessment of ore sorting technology to upgrade the already high-grade ore at Brucejack.
Newcrest is also introducing its EDGE mindset, which encourages workers to take personal ownership and bottom-up innovation, to further optimize the Northern BC operation.
As an example of EDGE in action, Newcrest will look to incorporate stope ore recovery and dilution improvement controls utilizing a dedicated drill and blast improvement plan, which is similar to a process that was successfully applied at its Gosowong gold mine in Indonesia. Any improvements in the drill and blast process will optimize the grade of ore being delivered to the Brucejack mill and reduce costs.
The initial optimization phase at Brucejack will also include leveraging the synergies with Newcrest's 70% owned Red Chris copper-gold mine about 85 miles (140 kilometers) to the north.
Streamlining the supply, logistics, travel, and procurement activities between its two Northern BC mines is expected to add up to C$15 to $20 million (US$12 to $16 million) in saving for Newcrest each year.
Unlocking larger potential
In addition to improvements through optimization, Newcrest sees enormous potential to expand the mill capacity and grow the high-grade gold resource in the Valley of the Kings deposit currently being mined and across the wider property.
"We have a proud history and depth of experience in operating epithermal gold mines over many years," Biswas said.
Leveraging this experience, Newcrest plans to expand both the milling and mining rate at Brucejack.
The Australian company is looking at increasing the mill throughput to 4,500 to 5,000 metric tons per day, which is a roughly 18% to 32% boost to the currently permitted 3,800 t/d processing rate.
Newcrest believes that much of this mill throughput increase can be achieved by eliminating bottlenecks in the current process, making this a potential low-cost, high-reward gold production initiative.
Keeping up with the expanded mill necessitates the need for increased mine production.
Newcrest anticipates mining rates will increase with an optimized mine plan, including updated mining inventories from the Valley of the Kings. To unlock this potential, the company plans to carry out aggressive drilling at Brucejack over the coming years, including a 200,000-meter program slated for 2022.
Going into 2021, the Valley of the Kings deposit at Brucejack hosted 11.5 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 8.7 grams per metric ton (3.2 million oz) gold and 9.8 g/t (3.6 million oz) silver.
An extensive exploration program carried out by Pretium last year further delineated several expansion targets immediately surrounding Valley of the Kings and found bonanza grade gold at exploration targets across the larger property.
Newcrest sees North Block, one of the Valley of the Kings expansion targets, as an area where it can significantly increase reserves and expand mining in the near term.
Highlights from 2021 drilling at North Block include:
• 19.5 meters averaging 306.6 g/t gold, including one meter averaging 5,910 g/t gold and 3,400 g/t silver.
• 15 meters averaging 561.5 g/t gold, including one meter averaging 8,400 g/t gold and 4,900 g/t silver.
• 15 meters averaging 493.2 g/t gold, including one meter averaging 7,360 g/t gold and 4,400 g/t silver.
In addition to the enormous potential to expand reserves in and around the current mining areas, Newcrest is excited to explore the wider Brucejack property. This exploration is expected to include the continuation of drilling at Golden Marmot, a discovery zone about 3,500 meters northwest of Valley of the Kings.
Highlights from the first nine of 26 holes that Pretium drilled at Golden Marmot last year include:
• 38 meters averaging 22.8 g/t gold, including 2.1 meters averaging 188.4 g/t gold.
• 53.5 meters averaging 72.5 g/t gold, including 0.5 meters averaging 6,700 g/t gold and 3,990 g/t silver.
• 5.8 meters averaging 46.1 g/t gold, including one meter averaging 208 g/t gold.
Accessible via an exploration trail from the Brucejack camp, Golden Marmot lies about 1,750 meters east of Hanging Glacier, a zone of bulk tonnage gold mineralization discovered with drilling in 2020. Both zones are part of a four-kilometer (2.5 miles) trend of highly altered rocks that extend from Hanging Glacier to the Bridge Zone southeast of the Brucejack Mine.
Newcrest plans to define the extent of Golden Marmot and explore for additional higher-grade centers across the wider Brucejack mineral claims.
"The land package is largely unexplored and very early in its life, and we see significant upside potential beyond Valley of the Kings and Golden Marmot," said Biswas.
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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