Toronto-based Chieftain Metals has released a long-awaited feasibility study that suggests a mine life of at least nine years and 2,000-tons per day from an underground operation.
The study was led by JDS Energy and Mining Inc., which estimates Chieftain can operate Tulsequah Chief at approximately $125 per ton of ore. The study estimates the mine could produce more than 400,000 ounces of gold and 1.2 million ounces of silver, and a combined 830 million pounds of zinc, lead and copper.
The mining company mostly abandoned the controversial idea of barging materials on the Taku River in and out of its Tulsequah Chief Mine in British Columbia.
It instead opted for a road from Atlin B.C., but that plan comes with opposition as well. The road passes through Taku River Tlingit First Nation land, and that group and the Children of the Taku now oppose the mine’s development.
The native organizations’ opposition is rooted in Chieftain’s until now unreleased feasibility study and the resumption of wastewater treatment at a plant at the Tulsequah Chief Mine.
The sudden shutdown took many on both sides of the Canadian border by surprise.
Chieftain finished construction on a $9 million treatment plant to treat historic acid mine drainage at the Tulsequah Chief Mine near the Taku River in British Columbia.
Chieftain inherited designs for the facility from former mine owner Redfern Resources Ltd.
Chieftain mothballed the plant in June, and said it did so to improve the facility’s efficiency while it rounds-up additional funding.
Chieftain partnered with a subsidiary of China-based CMAC Engineering. In a recent interview, Chieftain Metals CEO Victor Wyprysky said Chieftain would begin testing the treatment facility for eventual restart.
In Chieftain’s press release from Dec. 12, which announced the release of its study, Wyprysky said the mine “will bring significant benefits for the Taku River First Nation.”
The Tulsequah Chief Mine and Big Bull Mine are located approximately 40 miles north of Juneau.
The study focused on Tulsequah Chief. It predicts start-up costs of $439.5 million, and an additional $64 million to sustain capital over the life of the mine and $6.2 million in closure costs net of salvage value.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (11)
Add commentTulsequah Chief
It will be a long time before Juneau merchants forget the intentional theft of our materials and services by Redfern. I'm afraid that even legitimate and well financed Canadian mining companies will find no credit extended them.
This sounds like a job for
This sounds like a job for Todd Hoffman and his boys.
Money talks..,
... You know the rest. The love that keeps the world turning will be there as long as the money greases the wheels. Juneau and First Nations will accept cash. Good trade.
The downside is that the water treatment plant will clean up the acid drainage and the Taku Chinook run will never be able to smell their way home.
Just the start...
This mine is just the beginning of major operations east of Juneau. The state would do well to work wih Canada in getting this road built and possibly dredging a channel to a transfer point up the Taku that allows ferry services for supplies and passenger vehicles.
LOL Snagger!
Dredge the Taku all the way to the border.........?
Now I know you're crazy!
Stay off the Taku River.
Stay off the Taku River.
China
"Chieftain partnered with a subsidiary of China-based CMAC Engineering."
Awesome. Trading our perennial salmon for temporary exports to China. Good trade.
Love for money, southeastfood.
It's the oldest trade no matter what name you give it.
All concentrates...
...are exported for smelting. Those American jobs were killed 30 years ago.
uncoordinated
Skirkz-
I can definitely understand developing a mine if there is some coordinated plan to follow. Example: we will develop Hypothetical Mine Z because we need the copper to build a hydro intertie and the associated technological infrastructure to power our city for the next 150 years. That could be called a smart investment in our own future, or long term community/regional planning vision.
However, our plan is entirely uncoordinated. We see dollar signs and dividends when we hear about the tonnage of gold, silver, and copper coming out of a sacred watershed. But we don't have a plan with what we're going to do with those metals. So we sell them as commodities on the global market. Some of those metals are used in practical infrastructure that actually improves our daily lives, like renewable energy infrastructure or communications infrastructure. But much of those metals are used to produce consumer products in China that nobody really needs and will ultimately be thrown away.
Mining in a salmon watershed is something that should be taken very seriously, with a smart investment strategy to follow. Instead, we're perpetuating a short sighted open loop system: dig the metals up, let the tailings and slurries leach into our watersheds, sell the commodities, buy the superfluous junk, throw them away and send to an e-waste dump in Ghana. That open loop system makes absolutely no sense to me. We should be thinking in a more intelligent way than that, especially since our minerals are becoming more scarce and every year there are more and more people on this earth. I don't see why we should risk poisoning our healthy and reliable food source -- salmon -- for the sake of a temporary financial transaction that results in throw away gadgets.
Exponential economic and population growth in a world of finite resources does not work. We need to find an alternative model, and soon.
there will be no money
This project is a scam from the get-go. The economics do not pan out. This is another example of miners mining investors not metals. $125 dollars per ton! In your chemically induced dreams! Then why is it costing the Kensington over $1000 per ton? You must be drinking the water. This mine will never happen.