Alasks 2001 Mining in Review: The number of dollars spent this year on mining operations around the state is down significantly when compared to the last several years.

• Author: Freeman, Curtis J.
• Position: Mining Special Section

Over the last ten months the Alaska mining industry has been trying to take stock of where it's been in the last year and where it's going in 2002 and beyond. Where we have been is painfully simple: declining gold prices, declining base metals prices, declining platinum and palladium prices, declining general economy. Where we are going is anything but clear: crystal balls are murky or opaque to everyone I know except revisionists who can tell us why the metals markets performed as they did but only after they performed as they did. The one observation that is indisputable is that the Alaska mining industry is in the process of a major change, the first of its kind in the new global economy. The following is a compilation of who did what in the way of mineral exploration, where they did it and what they have or don't have to show for it in 2001.

WESTERN ALASKA

After a strong year in 2000, Cominco American's Red Dog mine has continued profitable operations although overall operating profits for the mine were down 10 percent in the first quarter of 2001 and 18 percent in the second quarter due primarily to a sharp drop in the price of zinc. During the first half of 2001, the mine generated 359,100 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 67,400 tonnes of lead concentrate while earning a $24.8 million operating profit.

The annual shipping season from the Red Dog port facility began on July 8 and the company forecasts it will ship 950,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 140,000 tonnes of lead concentrate before the port closes for the season. The company's $90 million mill optimization project is on schedule for a fourth-quarter 2001 completion. This design increase will push production to 1.1 million tonnes of zinc concentrate per year.

Cominco American also released new resource calculations at its Anarraaq zinc-lead-silver property north of Red Dog mine. Revised inferred resources stand at 17.2 million tonnes grading 15.8 percent zinc, 4.8 percent lead and 71 grams per tonne silver. Additional drilling was conducted in 2001 but results are not yet available.

The biggest news in Western Alaska was the news that NovaGold Resources had acquired an option from Placer Dome and Calista Corp. to acquire a 70 percent interest in Alaska's single largest gold resource, the Donlin Creek gold deposit in Southwestern Alaska. NovaGold must spend $12 million over 10 years to earn its interest. The Donlin Creek property currently has published measured and indicated resources of 70.1 million tonnes grading 3.06 grams of gold per tonne (6.9 million ounces) and inferred resources of 66.2 million tones grading 2.83 grams of gold per tonne (6 million ounces). NovaGold commenced offset drilling in late August as part of a $3 million, 15,000-meter, core-drilling program designed to infill previous drilling and determine the extent of previously intercepted high grade gold mineralization. How high is "high grade" you ask? How about 86 feet grading 0.76 ounces of gold per ton? NovaGold estimates that current higher grade reserves stand at 3.1 million ounces grading 5.2 grams of gold per tonne using a lower grade cut-off of 3.5 grams per tonne. Property expenditures to date total $37 million and include 110,000 meters of drilling, 28,500 meters of trenching and extensive ground and airborne geophysical surveys.

In a story that sounds like a Michael Crichton knock-off, Bristol Bay Native Corp. reported that 40-yearold core from the Kemuk Mountain iron deposit was recently donated to it by ExxonMobil Corp. The core, dating from a 1958-'59 drilling program conducted by ExxonMobil predecessor Humble Oil and Refining, originally totaled over 12,000 feet and was discovered last year in a warehouse in Houston. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated reserves on the project at 2.2 billion tons grading 15 percent to 17 percent Fe and 2 percent to 3 percent Ti. Traces of chalcopyrite were seen in several of the drill holes, but none of the core was analyzed for platinumgroup metals until early this year. Results from this work include values up to 1.33 grams per tonne platinum. The prospect is hosted in magnetitebearing ultramafic rocks covered by unconsolidated sediments. Bristol Bay currently is looking for a partner...