Ongoing Activity at Arctic and Bornite: Trilogy Metals advances its major Alaska deposits.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: Mining

Last year held several positive developments for Trilogy Metals (formerly NovaCopper), which has holdings and conducts mineral exploration in the Ambler Mining District.

In April 2017 Trilogy Metals announced it signed an agreement with South32 Limited, which invest in, mines, and produces commodities. The agreement granted South32 an option to form a 50/50 joint venture in regard to Trilogy Metal's Alaska assets, listed as "the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, which includes the Arctic and Bornite Projects; the Exploration and Option to Lease Agreement with NANA Regional Corporation, Inc.; and the remainder of Trilogy's state mining claims along the 100km volcanogenic massive sulphide belt," in the April 2017 Trilogy release.

To keep this joint venture option in good standing, South32 must contribute a minimum of $10 million each year for a maximum of three years. South32 can choose at any time to enter into the 50/50 joint venture with a minimum contribution of $150 million.

In 2017 Trilogy used the first round $10 million investment to conduct exploration at Bornite, a high-grade copper deposit (in April 2016 it was estimated to hold 5.5 billion pounds of copper inferred resources at a grade of 2.26 percent Cu and 913 million pounds of copper indicated resource at a grade of 1.02 percent Cu), launching their exploration program in June. The company contracted with Tuuq Drilling (a NANA subsidiary) and Major Drilling International to execute the planned nine-hole, 12,000 meter exploration drilling program. The drilling contractors used three diamond core rigs capable of drilling to depths of 1,400 meters. Last year's exploration at Bornite was "focused on drilling the extensions of mineralization last drilled by [Trilogy] in 2013," the company stated.

In September the company announced initial results from the first three holes (totaling 3,083 meters) at Bornite, saying "the initial three drill holes show thick and continuous intervals of copper mineralization and represent up to 300 meter off-sets from the company's last round of drill holes completed in 2013, which shows that the Bornite mineralized system continues to significantly expand." Specifically, at a cutoff grade of 0.5 percent copper, hole RC17-234 intersected three mineralized intervals totaling 83.3 meters averaging 1.1 percent copper; hole RC17-235W intersected two mineralized intervals totaling 33 meters averaging 0.9 percent copper; and hole RC17-236 intersected two...