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. In May 2013 Zazu and AIDEA agreed to fund continued studies of the road. In November 2013, Zazu began an official "Preliminary Economic Assessment" (PEA) for the project. The PEA was officially filed in April 2014.
| Exploration: | |
|---|---|
| 2010 | Onsite activity was limited, as the company focused on a preliminary assessment study and other related work. |
| 2011 | Extensive ongoing exploration including numerous drill holes, geochemical studies, baseline studies, infrastructure studies, and an acid mine drainage potential study. |
| 2012 | No physical activity, focus on baseline studies, modeling, and economic assessment. |
| 2013 | No exploration, focus on road issues and permitting. |
| 2014 | No exploration, but release of a Preliminary Economic Asssesment and ongoing design/environmental work. |
| 2015 | |
By David Coil, Erin McKittrick, Bretwood Higman, Ground Truth Trekking
Content on this page is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license. For commercial uses please contact us.
Date Created: 28th June 2010
This article relates to Alaska Metals Mining
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