ters), and condemnation drilling, at four holes and 800 meters.)” Trilogy said. Ambler Metals controls a large 426,600-acre block of land in the region which has several known discoveries. Several targets will be tested this summer including three high-priority target areas that with- in five kilometers of the mine, Tril - ogy said. There are also three other prospects in the region: Sunshine,13 kilometers to the west-northwest of Arctic; Snow, 30 kilometers to west-northwest, and Cliff-DH- Horse, 19 kilometers northwest of Arctic. Fawaz said a new target is the “Ambler Lowlands,” between the Arctic and Bornite discoveries. “We want to see what’s there,” he said. More work is also planned this summer on the 211-mile Ambler Ac- cess Project, an industrial road that would link the Ambler district with the Dalton Highway, which links the North Slope oil fields with the Interior Alaska highway system. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state’s development finance corporation, has budgeted $13 million this year for permitting
and preliminary engineering for the road, with AIDEA and Ambler Metals splitting the investment. An estimated 600 would be em- ployed in construction of a mine at Arctic, with about 450 working in production operations. In energy needed to operate the mine, the latest estimate is that about 20 megawatts of capacity would be needed. Fawaz said the preferred fuel is natural gas from liquified natural gas, or LNG, that would be trucked to the mine. It would take time for the LNG “supply train,” to be developed, however, so the plan is for the six generators now planned at the mine to be dual fuel, using diesel until a reliable supply of LNG can be secured. “Arctic would be relatively small as copper mines go, with an expect- ed production rate of 10,000 tons per day mined, but it is a high-grade deposit,” Fawaz said. “The aver - age grade is now estimated at 2.24 percent copper but when the other metal values are included, the zinc, lead, silver and gold, the overall val- ue in copper equivalent reaches 4.2 percent,” he said. The mine overall is expected to produce 155 million
pounds of copper, 192 million pounds of zinc, 32 million pounds of lead, 3.4 million ounces of silver and 32,400 ounces of gold. Concentrates from a mine at Arctic would be trucked to the Dalton High - way and south to Fairbanks, and then shipped on the Alaska Railroad to the Port of Alaska in Anchorage for ex- port by sea. The plan now is for 50 containers a day to be shipped from the mine. With two containers per truck, it would mean 25 trucks a day on the road. The mine would produce three concentrate products, Fawaz said, for copper, zinc and lead. Meanwhile, there are two law- suits brought by conservation groups against the U.S. Bureau of Land Man- agement’s Record of Decision issued approving the road Environmental Impact Statement in July 2020. Court briefings in the cases are expected in August. The company is confident that BLM, and the other Federal Agen - cies, will vigorously defend their work on the Record of Decision. The state, AIDEA, NANA and Ambler Met- als have intervened in the case to add heft to the defense.
Whether you need geophysical, geological or exploration support services, our ideas, experience and northern expertise mean you’ll have the best thinking on your project. Go ahead – pick our brains.
yellowknife • whitehorse • juneau
www.aurorageosciences.com
41
Summer 2021
The Alaska Miner
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting