The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2023 - January 18, 2024
Exploration carried out prior to B2Gold's acquisition outlined more than 9 million ounces of gold at the Back River project.
Upon gaining ownership of the Back River gold project in Nunavut through the roughly C$1.1 billion (US$820 million) buyout of Sabina Gold & Silver Corp., B2Gold Corp. established itself as the next largest gold producer in Canada's North.
With the acquisition of Sabina, B2Gold has gained a derisked mine project on track to pour its first gold early in 2025, as well as a district-scale land package with enormous potential to support decades of production in Nunavut.
"We are excited to add such a high-quality, high grade gold project in a top mining jurisdiction to our global portfolio, and we are thrilled to welcome the exceptional Sabina team into B2Gold," B2Gold President and CEO Clive Johnson said upon the closing the deal to buy Sabina.
The British Columbia-headquartered gold miner further demonstrated its intention on gaining a stronger foothold and having a longer presence in the Canadian territories with a C$19 million investment in Snowline Gold Corp., which is exploring an early stage but very exciting gold project in the Yukon.
The most advanced project on the district-scale Back River property is Goose, a mine development project that is slated to produce 3.34 million oz of gold over 15 years of mining 18.7 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 5.97 grams per metric ton (3.6 million oz) gold.
This will mark the first Canadian mine for B2Gold, which has gold operations in Mali, Namibia, and the Philippines, as well as exploration and development assets in Mali, Colombia, Finland, and Uzbekistan.
To keep Goose on track to pour its first bar of gold early in 2025, B2Gold is investing C$800 million (US$593 million) to finish development of the Goose Mine, plus C$90 million (US$66.7 million) to accelerate underground development to increase average gold production in the first five years above 300,000 oz per year.
By mid-September, just five months after closing the Sabina buyout, B2Gold was already pouring concrete and raising steel for the mill building and other buildings needed to achieve targeted production at Goose.
With the concrete and steel work being completed this year, it is expected that the ball mill will be set in place in December.
To ready ore for the mill, mine development is progressing at the Echo open pit, which will be mined out prior to process plant commissioning in order to provide tailings storage capacity.
At the same time, the company has advanced underground development to higher-grade ore that is expected to boost gold production early in the life of Goose Mine.
As the Goose Mine development progressed, B2Gold invested US$20 million (C$27 million) into a 2023 exploration campaign that included more than 28,000 meters of resource drilling and reconnaissance exploration on its newly acquired project that includes five blocks of claims covering an 80-kilometer (50 miles) mineral belt in Nunavut. The drilling primarily focused on deposits and targets at Goose, but also included 6,010 meters of drilling at George.
At the time of B2Gold's acquisition, Back River hosted 33.45 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 5.88 g/t (6.2 million oz) gold and 13.74 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 6.44 g/t (2.9 million oz) gold.
"As we continue with the construction of the Goose project and move toward commencement of production in 2025, our exploration program will also start immediately," Johnson said in April. "We aim to further define the Back River Gold District's untapped potential and unlock the significant value we see and opportunities for growth."
The 2023 drilling at Goose focused on collecting metallurgical samples for reagent optimization; test down-plunge expansion targets at the Umwelt and Llama deposits, and test regional targets surrounding the current resources.
To advance Back River pipeline targets, B2Gold's 2023 exploration included drilling at George, a project about 37 miles (60 kilometers) north of Goose that hosts 7.1 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 5.34 g/t (1.2 million oz) gold, plus 5.4 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 6.12 g/t (1.1 million oz) gold.
The 2023 program at George was designed to confirm and test resource expansion targets over a strike length of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).
B2Gold has also completed a structural and data review in preparation for aggressive exploration to drill test several zones of interest at Back River this year.
B2Gold also solidified its longer-term presence in Canada's North with 2023 investments to gain and maintain a 9.9% stake in Snowline, which is focused on establishing a world-class gold deposit at the Valley zone of its Rogue gold property in the Yukon.
Some of the highlights from 2022 and 2023 drilling at Valley include:
• 288 meters averaging 2.3 g/t gold in hole V-22-007.
• 318.8 meters averaging 2.55 g/t gold in hole V-22-010.
• 418.3 meters averaging 1.88 g/t gold in hole V-23-034.
• 384 meters averaging 2.47 g/t gold in hole V-22-037.
• 473.8 meters averaging 2.48 g/t gold in hole V-23-039.
Even before an inaugural resource, it is evident that Valley will be a large intrusion related gold deposit similar to those being mined at Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine in Alaska but at more than twice the grade and likely much larger.
"Their highly prospective land portfolio boasts district-scale, untapped greenfield potential, and we believe their Valley discovery to be one of the more significant discoveries in Canada in recent history," said Johnson.
B2Gold maintained it's 9.9% interest in Snowline through participation in the junior's C$16.5 million financing that closed in September.
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