Livengood update.

AuthorStricker, Julie
PositionSPECIAL SECTION: Mining

Seventy miles north of Fairbanks, an 1,800-foot hill overlooks a valley that has yielded 500,000 ounces of gold over the last century. The hill, optimistically called Money Knob, sits atop another 20 million ounces of gold, but getting it out of the ground safely and economically is a long process. That's what a group of Alaska mining experts is working on right now.

The Livengood Gold Project has been under way since 2006, when International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. (ITH), a Canadian junior mining company, acquired the rights to the core area from AngloGold Ashanti.

Opportunities

The project has several things going for it.

First of all is the gold, with 15.7 million ounces of measured and indicated gold resources and another 4.4 million ounces of gold inferred. That's enough ore to support an annual production rate of about 577,600 ounces over a projected fourteen-year lifespan. It's one of the largest independent and undeveloped gold deposits in the world.

In the first five years, ITH managers estimate production would average 698,500 ounces. That's significantly more than the state's two current largest gold sources: Fort Knox, which produced 379,453 ounces of gold in 2014, and Pogo Gold Mine, which produced 342,147 ounces.

It's on the road system. The Elliott Highway, which is paved, runs right next to the mine site, giving operators easy access to Fairbanks and a link to the Alaska Railroad.

It's located in a stable, mining-friendly region that has been actively mined for gold for the past 101 years. Mining is designated as the primary surface land use in the region.

It has access to a highly skilled workforce.

It has a great team. The Alaska operation is led by men and women with major mining expertise. They helped bring Fort Knox and Pogo through the permitting process and into development. They have also worked with Red Dog zinc mine in northwest Alaska, Kensington gold mine in southeast Alaska, and the Donlin Creek prospect, under development in southwest Alaska.

President and CEO Tom Irwin, a former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and Chief Operating Officer Karl Hanneman together have more than seventy years of mining experience.

The corporate offices of Tower Hills Mines LLC, an indirect subsidiary of International Tower Hill Mines Ltd., are now in Fairbanks. Major shareholders include Paulson & Company, Inc., Tocqueville Asset Management L.P., and AngloGold Ashanti Ltd.

"It's an Alaskan project and we...

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