Ambler Metals completes $26M exploration program
Ambler Metals is completing a successful $26 million exploration season at projects in the western Brooks Range. Three rigs were active with three helicopters in support, and about 80 people to 85 people were typically working out of the compa- ny’s support camp at Bornite though the summer. The work was done safely and on schedule, said Ramzi Fawaz, Ambler Metals’ CEO. Last year bad weather delayed portions of the company’s work, which has been ongoing for several years. There was good weather through most of the 2022 season, however. About 10,000 meters of explo- ration drilling was completed with 7,500 meters of this at the compa- ny’s high-grade Arctic deposit and the remainder at nearby exploration targets in the Ambler district and at Bornite, a historic upper Kobuk River copper discovery that is also nearby, Fawaz said. Cores from the drilling is now be- ing sent to laboratories for analysis with results expected by the end of the year, Fawaz said. The company also had several teams at work on soil sampling and mapping at Ambler as well as the Bornite mineral belt.. About 4,000 soil samples were gathered for analy- sis. A 2023 summer exploration pro- gram similar in scope to this year’s is expected, Fawaz said. Exploration at Arctic is well ad- vanced. “We are in the final stages of completing the pre-feasibility study (for Arctic) and will then move into the feasibility study phase,” he said. The pre-feasibility study is ex- pected to produce a capital cost es- timate with +/- 25 percent accuracy, after which Ambler Metals will sub - mit a Section 404 federal dredge and fill permit application, which will also trigger the federal Environmen- tal Impact Statement process. When and if Arctic moves to a final Feasibility Study the cost estimate will be refined to a +/- 15 percent to 10 percent range, Fawaz said. “The pre-feasibility study identi-
fies the recommended option to car - ry forward the project and includes advancing the basic engineering and cost estimates to confirm and refine the business case for the selected op- tion. If the Project still makes sense at this juncture, things proceed to the Feasibility Stage and the EIS is initi- ated,” he said. “The Feasibility Study itself de- fines the details necessary to exe - cute and achieve the business case and to further de-risk the project by advancing the basic engineering, execution planning and developing better accuracy cost estimates and project economics. This readies the project to take a Final Investment Decision,” he said. Ambler Metals’ prospects in the region are mainly copper but there is also zinc, which is considered a critical mineral by the federal gov- ernment. The new federal Inflation Reduction Act includes special tax incentives for new mining projects with at least one critical mineral and presence of zinc would appear to
qualify Arctic for these. Cobalt is also present at the Bor- nite prospect, as well as copper, but Ambler Metals needs to better under - stand the options to mine and pro- cess the cobalt. For example, Fawaz said the company is studying poten- tial new technologies that might see extraction of cobalt from copper tail- ings. If this works there could be the initial mining of copper with the tailings stored. Extraction of cobalt from the tailings, normally a waste material, would then follow. The Bornite and Ambler pros- pects are legacy Alaska discoveries made decades ago, in the 1960s in the base of Bornite. Development has been thwarted by lack of transpor- tation access, but the State of Alaska is planning a 211-mile industrial ac- cess road that would connect the re- gion to the existing Dalton Highway, the north-south road that connects North Slope oilfields to the Interior Alaska state highway system.
— Tim Bradner
10
The Alaska Miner
Fall 2022
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