The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2024 - January 15, 2025
The Bell-Irving River Bridge is among the improvements Seabridge has made to ready its world-class KSM copper-gold mine project in Northern British Columbia for development.
11 billion metric tons of measured, indicated, and inferred resources have been outlined at KSM.
Seabridge's 2024 drill program at Iskut will test porphyry copper-gold targets along a district-scale structural trend at the Northern B.C. project.
Winter drilling at 3 Aces prior to Seabridge's acquisition of the high-grade gold project.
While much of Seabridge Gold Inc.'s focus in 2024 was on forming a joint venture partnership with a major mining company with the wherewithal to develop a world-class mine at its KSM copper-gold-silver-molybdenum project in Northern British Columbia, the company continues to explore its four earlier-staged exploration projects in B.C., Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nevada.
11 billion metric tons of measured, indicated, and inferred resources have been outlined at KSM.
According to the most recent calculation, KSM hosts 153.9 million ounces of gold and 54.5 billion pounds of copper in all resource categories (88.3 million oz of gold and 19.4 billion lb of copper in measured and indicated, and 65.6 million oz of gold and 35.1 billion lb copper in inferred).
A prefeasibility study (PFS) completed in 2022 details plans for developing an open pit mining operation at KSM capable of producing more than 1 million oz of gold, 3 million oz of silver, 178 million pounds of copper, and 4.2 million lb of molybdenum annually for 33 years.
In addition, the project hosts enough underground mineable resources to produce an estimated 14.3 million oz of gold, 14.3 billion lb of copper, 68.2 million oz of silver, and 13.8 million lb of molybdenum for 39 years.
Going into 2024, a top priority for Seabridge was to elevate KSM's status to "substantially started," an official designation that ensures the previously approved environmental assessment certificate (EAC) for KSM remains in effect for the life of the world-class mine project.
Having invested roughly C$1 billion (US$730 million) into KSM since 2001, including more than C$444 million (US$324.5 million) from 2021 through 2023, the BC Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy determined that enough construction and predevelopment activities had been carried out to designate KSM as substantially started.
The permanency of the EAC resulting from the substantially started designation, coupled with the sizeable predevelopment and site work that supports it, significantly de-risks this mine project that could be a globally significant producer of copper, gold, silver, and molybdenum.
"This is a significant regulatory milestone for the KSM project, positioning it to become a multigenerational economic anchor for northwestern B.C.," said Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk. "KSM's large copper reserve can contribute to meeting North America's technology, defense, and security objectives while the project can also promote the economic wellbeing of our Indigenous partners."
As Seabridge advances its ultimate 2024 objectives surrounding the transfer of KSM into a JV, the other half of its focus remains on advancing its other gold-enriched projects and continuing to achieve its longstanding corporate goals.
A top exploration goal for Seabridge is to discover KSM-like deposits at Iskut, an earlier-staged project roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the east.
The 1980s-era Johnny Mountain mine produced gold, silver, and copper from high-grade skarn mineralization.
The Bronson Slope deposit near Johnny Mountain hosts 517.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.33 grams per metric ton (5.4 million oz) gold, 2.7 g/t (45 million oz) silver, and 0.09% (1.06 billion lb) copper, based on historical drilling and drilling completed by Seabridge's since its 2016 acquisition of Iskut.
Bronson Slope is one of three district-scale porphyry targets that have been identified at Iskut – Quartz Rise, about 5,000 meters to the southeast, and Snip North, roughly the same distance to the northwest, are the others.
Regional geophysical surveys and surface geology have confirmed a district-scale structural corridor that connects Bronson Slope with the Quartz Rise and Snip North targets.
A C$12 million (US$8.8 million) program carried out at Iskut last year focused largely on following up on discoveries made at Snip North in 2024, which included a 277-meter intercept in hole SN-23-05 averaging 0.8 g/t gold, 0.07% copper, and 1.19 g/t silver.
The 2024 drilling at Snip North cut even thicker zones of strong copper-gold mineralization indicative of a nearby porphyry intrusive source. Highlights include:
• 303 meters averaging 0.75 g/t gold, 0.1% copper, and 3 g/t silver from a depth of 373 meters in hole SN-24-17.
• 478 meters averaging 0.49 g/t gold, 0.13% copper, and 1.5 g/t silver from a depth of 87 meters in hole SN-24-18.
• 532 meters averaging 0.48 g/t gold, 0.1% copper, and 1.2 g/t silver from a depth of 125 meters in in hole SN-24-20.
Seabridge says the drilling completed at Snip North has intersected an intensive and extensive potassium alteration event that is several hundreds of meters thick with known dimensions of 1,500 by 500 meters. Company geologists believe this alteration is proximal to a magmatic-hydrothermal event generated by a yet-to-be-discovered porphyritic intrusion.
"We're excited by the apparent size of the event we are exploring and the substantial metal content that we have found to date. Our team believes we are now in the process of unlocking the porphyry potential we had in mind when we acquired the Iskut project," said Fronk. "We think this is a discovery in the making."
Winter drilling at 3 Aces prior to Seabridge's acquisition of the high-grade gold project.
In neighboring Yukon, Seabridge carried out roughly 8,000 meters of drilling focused on connecting and expanding the zones of high-grade gold mineralization outlined so far at 3 Aces, a project with characteristics similar to orogenic gold deposits found in the California Mother Lode Belt and the Juneau Gold Belt in Alaska.
Exploration carried out prior to Seabridge's 2020 purchase of 3 Aces outlined broad areas of gold-in-soil anomalies extending more than 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) across the 357-square-kilometer (138 square miles) property, and past drilling encountered extensive high-grade gold in the project's Central Core Area (CCA).
Seabridge geologists have developed a model that explains the controls on mineralization within the CAA.
"Previous operators encountered challenges connecting and extending target zones in the CCA," said Fronk. "Our team's comprehensive and detailed work has recognized controls that appear to have resolved this continuity issue."
With this new model, the 2024 program focused on connecting the various zones of high-grade gold mineralization, with the ultimate goal of establishing a resource for the CCA at 3 Aces.
In November, Seabridge said that through the integration of results into an updated exploration model, it is focusing on discrete areas where drilling could expand the high-grade gold mineralization at 3 Aces.
In addition to the resource model drilling within the CCA, Seabridge geologists carried out surface exploration at regional targets, two of which were tested with preliminary reverse circulation drilling. This work has resulted in an updated regional exploration model that has prioritized targets across the 3 Aces property for resource definition drilling in 2025.
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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