The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Near surface Mitchell deposits host 72M oz; new PFS coming North of 60 Mining News – April 15, 2022
Workers explore the Mitchell deposits on Seabridge's KSM gold-copper-silver mine project in BC's Golden Triangle.
Seabridge Gold Inc. April 14 announced that Mitchell and East Mitchell, two of the five deposits on the company's KSM project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, host a combined 72 million ounces of gold, 323 million oz of silver, 11.9 billion pounds of copper, and 171 million lb of molybdenum.
Seabridge acquired East Mitchell, then known as Snowfield, from Pretium Resources Inc. toward the end of 2020.
A drill program carried out last year confirmed that the neighboring Mitchell deposits, which were previously on opposite sides of a property line, are essentially one large deposit with nearly identical controls on metal distribution and complementary metallurgy.
Incorporating the information from the 2021 program, the Mitchell deposits host a combined 4.12 billion metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 0.54 grams per metric ton (72.2 million oz) gold, 2.4 g/t (323 million oz) silver, 0.13% (11.9 billion lb) copper, and 71 parts per million (648 million lb) molybdenum.
The new resource will be used in an updated preliminary feasibility study that will provide the new economic and engineering parameters of a mine at KSM that includes East Mitchell.
"We are very eager to see how this new resource estimate folds into our revised PFS," said Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk.
The previous PFS, completed in 2016, 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.
This PFS envisioned both open pit mining of the near surface resources and block cave mining of the deeper deposits.
East Mitchell, which hosts roughly 40% of the measured and indicated resources in the combined Mitchell deposits, is expected to add significantly to the economics and scale of the proposed world-class mine.
"We expect the combination of East Mitchell and Mitchell to create a single very large open pit mining opportunity with improved economic projections including a likely increase in proven and probable gold reserves, better grades in the early years of production and deferral of the need to pay for capital intensive underground block-cave development," said Fronk. "These expected gains, along with higher metal prices, should help offset the impact of inflation on materials and labor costs in the updated PFS."
In addition to what East Mitchell means for enhancing the KSM mine plan, the expanded Mitchell deposit resources also ensure that Seabridge continues to meet its governing objective – enhancing the gold ownership of its shareholders.
"With these resource additions, we have once again met our annual corporate objective of increasing our gold ownership on a per share basis, said Fronk. "Since our last published resource estimate in December 2020, we have added 12.0 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated categories, reduced inferred gold resources by about 0.2 million ounces and increased shares outstanding by approximately 5.6 million for new financings."
The updated PFS for KSM is expected to be finished in June.
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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