The Arctic deposit is in the Ambler Mining District of Alaska – a safe, mining friendly jurisdiction approximately 470 kilometers northwest of Fairbanks.
We announced the results of the Arctic Feasibility Study (FS) on August 20, 2020 and filed the technical report titled “Arctic Feasibility Study Alaska, USA NI 43-101 Technical Report” on October 2, 2020.
The FS for the Arctic Project describes the potential technical and economic viability of establishing a conventional open-pit copper-zinc-lead-silver-gold mine-and-mill complex for a 10,000 tonne-per-day operation. The base case scenario utilizes long-term metal prices of $3.00/lb for copper, $1.10/lb for zinc, $1.00/lb for lead, $18.00/oz for silver and $1,300/oz for gold. The FS was prepared on a 100% ownership basis and all amounts are in US dollars.
Highlights of the 2020 Arctic Project Feasibility Study are as follows:
More information on the Arctic project can be found in the National Instrument 43-101 report titled, “Arctic Feasibility Study Alaska, USA NI 43-101 Technical Report” released on October 2, 2020 with an effective date of August 20, 2020.
The Arctic deposit is located in the Ambler Mining District in the southern Brooks Range, in the NWAB of Alaska. The Property is geographically isolated with no current road access or nearby power infrastructure. The Property is located 270 kilometers east of the town of Kotzebue, 36 kilometers northeast of the village of Kobuk, and 260 kilometers west of the Dalton Highway, an all-weather state maintained highway.
On the Property, polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulphide (“VMS”) style deposits (including Arctic) and prospects are hosted in the Ambler Sequence, a group of Middle Devonian to Early Mississippian, metamorphosed, bimodal volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks with interbedded metasediments. VMS-style mineralization is found along the entire 110 kilometer strike length of the district.
Mineralization at Arctic occurs as semi-massive to massive sulphide beds within primarily graphitic and quartz mica (+/- chlorite) schists. The sulphide beds average 4 meters in thickness but vary from less than 1 meter up to as much as 18 meters in thickness. The bulk of the mineralization is within an area of roughly 1 km2 with mineralization extending 250 meters below the surface. Mineralization is predominantly coarse-grained sulphides consisting mainly of chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena, tetrahedrite, arsenopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite. Trace amounts of electrum and enargite are also present.