Full metal fills plate in Alaska: great land 'elephant country,' full of promise.

• Author: Liles, Patricia
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: MINING ISSUE

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In addition to exploring on 14 different mineral properties in Alaska, Full Metal Minerals may be considered an unofficial "welcome wagon" for the state's mineral industry.

"We're pretty proud of the fact that we've introduced seven new companies to Alaska," said Rob McLeod, vice president of exploration for the Vancouver, British Columbia-based junior exploration company. "Two of those companies, Metallica (Resources) and Andover (Ventures), have become quite aggressive in the state, acquiring new property on their own."

Currently, Full Metal has six of its 14 properties in Alaska optioned with other exploration companies. Those joint ventures can reduce the company's risk or create an opportunity to bring a partner into a property with specific technical expertise that can help advance the geological work, McLeod said.

Bringing new companies to Alaska "... creates a bit of competition for us, but it's a huge state with lots of mineral potential," he said.

Since going public in 2004 and acquiring its first mineral exploration properties in Alaska, Full Metal has spent about $20 million in Alaska, $7 million of that in 2007, he said. Full Metal's partners on the six optioned properties spent some $3.5 million more in 2007, McLeod said.

Companywide, work in 2007 included completing about 90,000 feet of drilling in Alaska, with as many as 80 people working for Full Metal or its contractors, he said. The company has acquired the largest land position of any public minerals exploration company in the state of Alaska, according to Full Metal's Web site.

Alaska offers mineral prospectors considerable under-explored terrain to work on, the primary attraction for Full Metal. "If you compare Alaska to British Columbia, there is about 10 percent of the exploration spending as B.C. in the same geological environment," McLeod said. "We just saw so many different opportunities up there for so many different commodities, and the ground has received minimal exploration."

The potential to find a large mineral deposit, such as the Red Dog zinc and lead mine, the Donlin Creek gold deposit or the Pebble copper-gold project, is another attractive factor about Alaska, McLeod said. "Those are some of the world's largest deposits, so it is real elephant country."

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