The Lik prospect, in northwest Alaska, is under exploration as a possible zinc/lead/silver mine by a small Canadian company called Zazu Metals Corporation, in collaboration with Teck Resources Limited. The mine is only 13 miles northwest of the Red Dog Mine, and mining prospectors hope to use much of the same infrastructure, including the transport road and port.
The prospect encompasses two deposits: "Lik South", a shallow deposit that would be mined using an open pit, and "Lik North", a deeper deposit that would require underground mining.
In March 2010, Zazu released the results of a preliminary scoping study (5 MB) of the Lik South deposit that estimated 16 million tons of mineable ore, with recovery of 8.08% zinc, 2.57% lead and 47.9 g/t silver. Projections for mining these resources are based on processing 5,500 tons of ore per day, for a mine lifetime of 8 years.
According to Zazu, the prospect is at the "early development" stage. Studies are underway on metallurgy, environmental impacts, road access, and port capacity. In June 2010, Zazu announced a partnership with JDS Energy and Mining to help manage project development.
In November 2010, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) (who owns the transport road at Red Dog Mine) began a "pre-due diligence" study on allowing access to the road.
Active drilling and exploration is underway on the site as of Summer 2011.
By David Coil, Erin McKittrick, Bretwood Higman, Ground Truth Trekking
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Date Created: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:33:41 -0800
Last Modified: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:18:22 -0800
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