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Gold/Mining/Energy : GOLD (Au) PRODUCERS -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NYBob1 who wrote (116)	11/29/2007 1:03:41 AM
From: NYBob1	Respond to of 134

Rouston's Comments - resourceopportunities.com British Columbia Exploration Update -- October 01, 2007 The largest mine development project in Canadian history - is presently underway in British Columbia. Recent drill results confirm that there is a great deal - yet to be discovered in this mineral-rich province. With funding from mining major Teck Cominco, NovaGold's Galore Creek project is now under development. A work force of 600 and a fleet of heavy equipment are presently constructing a road to gain access to the mine site. With an expected start date of 2012, Galore is projected to become one of the larger mines in the world, producing 430 million pounds of copper, 4 million ounces of silver and 340,000 ounces of gold annually. With a capital cost in the order of $2 billion, the Galore project ranks as the most costly mine development project ever undertaken in Canada... and is a big project by any measure. Development of the Galore Creek deposit is extremely significant from several perspectives. Most importantly, it underlines the geological potential of the province. The deposit was discovered decades ago and was evaluated by two major mining companies. They saw the deposit as being too small to justify development and as a result, the deposit sat idle for years until it was bought by what was then a small exploration company. NovaGold applied some leading edge geological thinking that led them to see the potential to expand the deposit. Once they had demonstrated the validity of their geological interpretation with a few hundred drill holes, Teck Cominco agreed to provide the next half billion dollars of equity toward mine development. The Galore Creek development - also demonstrates that the provincial regulatory system can work in favor of mining. In a remarkably short period of time, NovaGold completed the environmental assessment and secured all of the permits needed to develop a massive mining operation. NovaGold was also able to secure a cooperation agreement with the local First Nations, a step that some investors see as an impediment. NovaGold's project has advanced so quickly that few people yet appreciate how real and how significant this project truly is. It was only last month that the two companies concluded their partnership agreement. The project is proceeding at a remarkable pace, with plans to continue work during the winter, with a focus on tunnels and other aspects that can be worked out of the weather. While mine development at Galore Creek is underway, exploration in the province continues to generate important results that vividly demonstrate that there is a lot more metal yet to be found. One of the most spectacular drill holes seen in many years was reported recently from an exploration project in British Columbia. The implications of that drill hole are far-reaching. However, with the news coming as it did on August 14, the importance was completely lost in the turmoil of the debt crisis that totally dominated business news at that time. Imperial Metals (III-TSX) reported an intersection of 822 meters, starting near surface, grading 1.07% copper plus 1.27 grams per tonne gold. Either one of those metals over that interval would have made a great hole. The two metals together have important implications for exploration in British Columbia. Imperial Metals is producing copper, molybdenum and gold from two mines in central B.C. The recent drill hole came from the Red Chris development-stage project, which the company recently acquired. Red Chris is a classic B.C. porphyry copper-gold deposit. It is located in northwestern British Columbia, east of NovaGold's Galore Creek deposit and Copper Fox' Schaft Creek deposit. Red Chris is road accessible, just east of the Stewart-Cassiar highway. Mineralization was first discovered in the Red Chris area in 1956. The property was extensively explored from 1968 to 1981. In 1994, a junior company consolidated the ownership, which by then was held by three larger companies. The junior kicked off a new exploration era for the project, leading to an expanded resource and a comprehensive evaluation in 1998. The downturn in the industry saw the project put on hold until 2004. Higher metal prices and improving infrastructure in that corner of the province led Imperial Metals into a bidding war with another intermediate producer. After their winning bid, Imperial carried out a modest summer exploration program as they awaited progress on development of a power line into the area. The Imperial program included drilling beneath the near surface material that had been the focus of decades of work. A study completed last year estimated a proven and probable reserve for Red Chris of 276 million tonnes grading 0.35% copper and 0.27 grams per tonne gold. Most of that material was to be mined from a depth of less than about 200 meters. The recent hole opens the possibility that a larger and higher grade portion of the deposit is waiting to be delineated beneath the zone that has been examined over a period of half a century. By the way, the 822 meters of favorable grade material encountered by Imperial is only a part of the story. Assays are still awaited from a further 200-plus meters of the hole that extended to 1,029 meters. A great deal more drilling is needed to properly assess the deeper zone. Nevertheless, the deep hole announced in August shows that mineralization extends to much greater depths than was envisioned in the mining plan. Equally important, that hole suggests that at least some of the deeper material may carry grades substantially higher than the near-surface material in the mine plan. The results reported by Imperial open the possibility for other B.C. porphyry copper-gold deposits to have deeper portions that were not drilled by earlier operators. Remember, much of the work in the province was done decades ago, extending back to the 1950s, '60s and '70s. At that time, the focus was on the near surface zones. Also, gold was much less important than it is today, leading to a focus on copper rather than gold. The development of Galore and the Red Chris results further support the premise held by Resource Opportunities that some of the juniors that are building on earlier work by major mining companies have enormous upside potential. As detailed in the British Columbia exploration issue last May 2007, there was an enormous amount of work conducted by majors in B.C. in past decades. This issue focuses on the exploration companies operating in B.C. and highlights several that are poised to benefit in a big way from the reemergence of Canada's western province as a favored locale for mine development. siliconinvestor.com