FIRST QUANTUM: WALKS AWAY FROM PEBBLE IN ALASKA / 5 Geotech_Earlug_2016_Alt2.pdf 1 2016-06-24 4:27:20 PM
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Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama offer exciting mineral potential / 9–13
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JUNE 11-24, 2018 / VOL. 104 ISSUE 12 / GLOBAL MINING NEWS · SINCE 1915 / $3.99 / WWW.NORTHERNMINER.COM
Fireweed Zinc advances Macmillan Pass in Yukon ZINC
| Preps for $5M mid-year drill campaign
Production nears for Nevada Copper DEVELOPMENT
| Pumpkin Hollow mine should hit 5,000 tonnes per day in 2020 BY TRISH SAYWELL tsaywell@northernminer.com
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umpkin Hollow will be the next copper mine built in North America, Matthew Gili, Nevada Copper’s (TSX: NCU) new president and CEO, tells The Northern Miner in one of his first media interviews on the job. Gili, a mining engineer who joined the company in May, says his mandate from Nevada Copper’s board is clear: build a mine at Pumpkin Hollow that will set in motion the company’s transformation into a mid-tier copper producer. After 15 years at Rio Tinto (LON: RIO) and five years at Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: ABX), Gili has See NEVADA COPPER / 8 PM40069240
The Tom camp at Fireweed Zinc’s Macmillan Pass zinc-lead-silver project in the Yukon. FIREWEED ZINC BY RICHARD QUARISA
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rquarisa@northernminer.com
ireweed Zinc (TSXV: FWC; US-OTC: FWEDF) could leverage open-pit mining to fund underground development at its 470 sq. km Macmillan Pass zinc-
lead-silver project in the Yukon, according to its new preliminary economic assessment (PEA). The company would start with three years of conventional truckand-shovel mining at its Tom and Jason deposits before transitioning into underground mining by year
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four of the mine’s 18-year life. Open-pit mining would account for 13% of the total 32.7 million tonnes of material Fireweed would mine and process at Macmillan Pass. Fireweed president and CEO Brandon Macdonald says starting with an open pit lowers the company’s initial capital expense. “The minimal pre-strip on Tom and Jason costs a lot less than the initial development to get the underground mine started,” Macdonald says in an interview with The Northern Miner. “So being able to fund that underground development out of cash flow makes a big difference.” The company drafted a big-pit scenario and a small-pit scenario, and presented the latter in its study. Macdonald says two factors determine the pit life: the amount and intensity of acid generation from waste rock and the pit slope angle. The company chose conservative
“THE LESS YOU’RE LEAVING BEHIND THAT NEEDS MONITORING, THE BETTER.” BRANDON MACDONALD PRESIDENT AND CEO, FIREWEED ZINC
pit slope angles: 42 degrees at Tom and 45 degrees at Jason. “We just didn’t have enough geotechnical information to say comfortably that it could be steeper,” Macdonald says. “If we can make the pit steeper, it means less strip per tonne of rock mined and processed, which means less acid-generating rock to manage. Then you can have more tonnes in the pit life.” Fireweed designed the current pits so that it could use half of the See FIREWEED / 2
PAN AMERICAN SILVER: SECURITY ISSUES AT DOLORES / 3
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