Geotech_Earlug_2015_VTEM_Colour3.pdf 1 2015-09-25 9:59:47 AM
VTEM™ ZTEM™ Gravity Magnetics Radiometrics Data Processing Interpretation 905 841 5004 | geotech.ca
GOLDCORP'S JEANNES
CEO sees bear market in gold ending / 3
Short Road to Silver Production/Earning TSX.V: GRG www.goldenarrowresources.com
ENERGY & MINES SUMMIT
FREEPORT-MCMORAN
Conference eyes renewable energy / 5
Endures rough Q3 / 14
NOVEMBER 9–15, 2015 / VOL. 101 ISSUE 39 / GLOBAL MINING NEWS · SINCE 1915 / $3.99 / WWW.NORTHERNMINER.COM
Wolfden hunts for nickel in Manitoba
Netolitzky's Skeena seeks high grade at GJ EXPLORATION
RESULTS
| Junior drilling where Vale left off at Rice Island
| Skeena acquires property in BC’s most prospective metals district
BY LESLEY STOKES lstokes@northernminer.com VANCOUVER
W
hen nickel giant Vale (NYSE: VALE) dropped its claims over the Rice Island nickel and copper project in the highly prolific Flin Flon–Snow Lake mining district of Manitoba in May, junior explorer Wolfden Resources (TSXV: WLF) was keen to step in and resuscitate some much-needed exploration on the dormant property. “It’s a property that we’ve had our eyes on for quite some time,” CEO George Topping tells The Northern Miner during a phone interview. “It’s an area we know has the potential to host high-grade nickel mineralization, and it hasn’t seen any exploration since the 1940s.” Within a month after announcing its acquisition, Wolfden mobilized a drill rig into the property, 10 km southeast of the town of Snow Lake, to confirm historical drilling on the magmatic nickel-copper target across 250 metres at surface to 500 metres deep. All seven drill holes hit the Main zone — a blanket of massive to semimassive sulphides at the base of a gabbroic intrusion — returning intercepts of 36.2 metres of 1.5% nickel and 0.6% copper, and 7.7 metres of 2.8% nickel and 1.1% copper. Topping says the company is pleased with the results, but also intrigued by a sediment-hosted massive sulphide hit 50 metres below the mineralization, which returned an intercept of 4.6 metres of 3.97% nickel and 0.95% copper. “We think there’s a good potential here for stacked zones of great, high-grade mineralization,” he says. “Inco [now Vale] never recognized that — most of their holes stopped just after the main zone, and never went deep enough to test those lower horizons.” He reckons that Vale has focused on building tonnes at its other properties in the nearby Thompson nickel belt — such as the T-1, T-3 and Birchtree mines See WOLFDEN / 13
Skeena Resources chairman Ron Netolitzky at the Spectrum gold project — next to the GJ gold property — in northwestern British Columbia. BY LESLEY STOKES
I
lstokes@northernminer.com VANCOUVER
t’s taken NGEx Resources (TSX: NGQ; US-OTC: NGQRF) over three decades to bid farewell to its GJ porphyry copper-gold property, 60 km south of Dease Lake, B.C., but now the Chilean-focused explorer, along with majority partner Teck Resources (TSX: TCK.B; NYSE: TCK), is selling it all to the high-grade gold hunter Skeena Resources (TSXV: SKE; US-OTC: SKREF). “The GJ property is something that I’ve been after for a lot of years and always said that one day I’ll get back up there,” famed explorer and Skeena chairman Ron Netolitzky tells The Northern Miner from his home in Victoria. “It’s something that’s worth chasing in the whole district.” The company picked up GJ from Teck and NGEx for $500,000 cash-inhand and $1-million worth of Skeena shares, with more share payments totalling $3 million on or before the second and fift h anniversary. For Netolitzky, the deal was a “bargain,” considering the property lies
“IF YOU HAVE A LARGE MINERALIZING SYSTEM LIKE THAT … MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THE OPPORTUNITY THAT YOU MAY FIND ON ITS PERIPHERY. IT WORKED FOR BRUCEJACK.”
SKEENA RESOURCES
PM40069240
RON NETOLITZKY CHAIRMAN, SKEENA RESOURCES
25 km northeast on trend of Imperial Metals’ (TSX: III; US-OTC: IPMLF) behemoth Red Chris copper-gold mine, and that Teck “spent a lot of money getting ready to do the job, but never actually did it.” “I think Teck started on GJ with a concept of looking for a deep Red Chris, but if you looked at the money they spent, they did a heck of a lot of geophysics, but not a whole lot of drilling,” he says. MINFILE data from B.C.’s Ministry of Energy and Mines indicate that Teck ran 50 line km of ground magnetic survey, 76.6 line km of induced polarization survey and only 4,300 metres of drilling during its joint venture with NGEx, which earned the major a 51% interest in the property in 2014.
Netolitzky says despite Teck’s $12-million investment, the GJ deposit remains “largely untested.” “It’s similar to Red Chris, and worthy of a follow-up,” he says. “It has a of the same signatures, and it remains open to depth.” Since 1964, Netolitzky and other explorers outlined a large porphyry system at GJ, highlighted by drill intercepts of 47 metres grading 0.8% copper and 1.3 grams gold per tonne, within a broader intercept of 131 metres that graded 0.4% copper and 0.65 gram gold. Over the years, the property exchanged hands until Curator Resources emerged as a sole owner in 1983, before changing names to See SKEENA / 2
BARRICK AND AGNICO: IMPRESSIVE QUARTERLY RESULTS / 11
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