The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - November 6, 2023
Core from drilling at East Ridge, a large resource expansion zone at Newmont's Red Chris Mine in BC's Golden Triangle.
Ultra-high-grade gold in core from a hole drilled at Newmont's Brucejack Mine in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
In a historic deal that adds to Newmont Corp.'s position as the world's largest gold producer while also substantially boosting its production of the copper needed for the energy transition, the Colorado-based mining company has completed the roughly US$19 billion buyout of Newcrest Mining Ltd.
"Today marks a historic milestone in our company and the industry with the successful completion of this transformational acquisition of Newcrest by Newmont," Newmont President and CEO Tom Palmer said.
With the addition of Newcrest's portfolio, Newmont now owns or co-owns 19 global operations capable of contributing roughly 8 million oz of gold and 330 million pounds of copper to the company each year. This includes seven operations in North America, five in Latin America and Caribbean, four in Australia, two in Africa, and one in Papua New Guinea.
"Our attention now turns to safely, efficiently, and responsibly integrating Newcrest's assets and people into Newmont's proven operating model, so we can accelerate the delivery of our value-focused strategy for all our stakeholders," Palmer added.
This integration includes the merging of Newcrest's Red Chris and Brucejack, the only large-scale mines currently operating in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, with Newmont's advanced-staged Tatogga gold-silver-copper exploration property and 50% interest in the world-class Galore Creek copper-gold mine project in this prolific copper and gold district in Northern BC.
"By combining the two existing Newcrest operations, Brucejack and Red Chris, with Newmont's Saddle North and Galore Creek projects, a Tier 1 district in the highly prospective Golden Triangle region of British Columbia will be created – a district in which Newmont will be operating for decades to come," Palmer said earlier this year.
Newmont's Tier 1 copper-gold production center in Northern BC is now centered at Red Chris, a large porphyry copper-gold mine that Newcrest bought 70% interest in during 2019 and operated under a joint venture with Imperial Metals Corp.
Currently, Red Chris is being operated as an open pit mine that produces roughly 50 million lb of copper and 50,000 oz of gold per year.
The copper and gold output at this Northern BC operation, however, is on track to increase substantially with the transition to block cave underground mining.
A prefeasibility study completed in 2021 details an underground block cave mining operation that would produce 1.5 million metric tons (3.3 billion lb) of copper and 4.9 million oz of gold from 406 million metric tons of ore over roughly 31 years of mining.
This PFS, however, does not include Newcrest's significant expansion of underground resources over the past two years, which will likely bolster production numbers upon the completion of a feasibility study for the block cave mining expansion.
The addition of an operating interest in Red Chris is a good fit with the Golden Triangle assets already in Newmont's portfolio.
The largest and most advanced of these assets is Galore Creek, a world-class copper-gold project about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Red Chris that is being advanced by Galore Creek Mining Corp. – a JV owned equally by Newmont and Teck Resources Ltd.
A prefeasibility study completed in 2011 envisioned a mine at Galore Creek producing 6.2 million lb of copper over an 18-year span, which would rank as the largest copper operation in Canada.
Crediting the value of the 4 million oz of gold and 65.8 million oz of silver forecast to be recovered over that mine life, Galore Creek would also be the lowest-cost copper producer in the country.
The JV is currently working on an updated prefeasibility study that is expected to be finalized next year.
In 2021, Newmont further strengthened its foothold in the Golden Triangle with the US$311 million buyout of GT Gold Corp. and that company's advanced-staged Tatogga gold-silver-copper exploration project about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) south of Red Chris.
At the time of Newmont's acquisition, the Saddle North deposit at Tatogga hosted 1.8 billion lb of copper, 3.5 million oz of gold, and 7.6 million oz of silver in the indicated resource category; plus 3 billion lb of copper, 5.5 million oz of gold, and 11.6 million oz of silver in the lower confidence inferred category.
Newmont has yet to discuss its exploration or development plans for Saddle North, but the project's proximity to Red Chris opens the potential for synergies.
In addition to its more copper-forward portfolio of mines and projects in Northern BC, Newmont now owns a mine in the heart of the Golden Triangle famed for its bonanza gold grades.
Lying about 100 miles south of Red Chris, Brucejack is an underground mine that produced 286,000 oz of gold from ore averaging 6.8 g/t gold during Newcrest's fiscal year 2023, which ended on June 30.
At the time of the Newmont buyout, Newcrest was in the midst of implementing a three-phase strategy to unlock the full potential of Brucejack and the district-scale property this high-grade gold target is located on. This included expanding the mill throughput to 4,500 to 5,000 metric tons per day, a roughly 18% to 32% boost to the current 3,800 t/d processing rate.
Exploration by Newcrest has also shown that high-grade gold mineralization extends well beyond the areas currently being mined at Brucejack.
According to the latest calculation, the mine project hosts 19 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 13 g/t (8.2 million oz) gold.
As a testament to the bonanza grades for which Brucejack is famed, one hole drilled by Newcrest this year cut 38.5 meters averaging 49 g/t (1.58 oz/t) gold, including a one-meter subsection averaging 1,735 g/t (55.78 oz/t) gold.
Newmont is also advancing its 2.3-million-ounce Coffee Gold Mine project in the Yukon toward production.
Lying only about 475 miles northwest of the company's new Red Chris Mine, Coffee should also benefit from the synergies of the gold and copper mining center Newmont is building in Northern BC.
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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