Diamond play buoys Roundup

With mineral exploration in British Columbia and the Yukon in the doldrums, diamond exploration and where best to take Spanish or Russian lessons were popular topics for discussion among the approximate 1,600 people that turned out for the ninth annual Cordilleran Geology and Exploration Roundup held here in late January.

This year’s conference featured an international session on mineral opportunities in Latin America and in the former Soviet republics. The mineral potential of Greenland and Alaska were highlighted, and a “North of 60” display on mineral potential in the Yukon and Northwest Territories also attracted plenty of interest.

But exploration activity in Western Canada continued its downtrend in 1991 from the buoyant levels of the late 1980s, according to Bill Wolfe, outgoing president of the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines. “Aside from a few special cases like the half-mile-long drill holes in the Fish Lake porphyry copper-gold deposit, 1991 was an uninspiring year for exploration in British Columbia and the Yukon,” Wolfe said.

Only one new mine was opened last year; the Snip gold mine owned 60% by Cominco and 40% by Prime Resources Group. One former copper-zinc producer, Goldstream, was reopened, and a small gold mine (the SB joint venture involving Westmin Resources and Tenajon Resources) was opened and closed. Wolfe noted a steady decline in available risk capital (from VSE financings of all types) from a 1987 high of $1.36 billion to the 1991 level of $340 million. And Wolfe also pointed to a decline in flow-through share placements by VSE-listed companies which fell to $14.2 million in 1991 from $92 million in 1990. The same negative slope was also reflected on charts showing Free Miners Licenses issued, line kilometres of airborne geophysics and diamond drilling footage.

Land-use issues were another important issue at this year’s Cordilleran Roundup, and attendees were informed that the Chamber of Mines’ financial resources are being stretched by its efforts to make its voice heard in a growing number of land-use battles.

Wolfe said individual prospectors and organizations in the province’s interior are asking assistance from the Chamber to support them in local land-use disputes concerning tenure rights and land withdrawals. “In many cases we simply do not have the financial or manpower resources to help them, especially if their opponents are backed by one of the well-financed environmental organizations,” Wolfe added.

To make his point, Wolfe contrasted the chamber’s $200,000 annual operating budget with total annual budgets of $685 million for the top 20 environmental organizations in North America.

The Cordilleran roundup also featured sessions on advanced exploration or development projects in the West, with copper and copper-gold projects dominating the list. These included the Fish Lake and Kemess copper-gold projects north of Prince George, B.C., Placer Dome’s Kerr deposit near Stewart, B.C., the Galore Creek deposit owned by Stikine Copper, and Western Copper-Thermal Exploration’s joint venture Williams Creek project in the Yukon.

But diamond exploration generated the most excitement this year, even though seasoned explorationists caution that the odds of finding economic gem-quality diamonds in Canada make gold exploration look like child’s play. Dia Met Minerals, which owns 29% of a diamond exploration joint venture where BHP-Utah Mines is earning a 51% interest, attracted plenty of attention with its information and display booth featuring a real diamond (but not one from the Northwest Territories).

The company’s key directors have been exploring for diamonds for over 15 years, and that persistence appears to be paying off with the recent discovery of a diamondiferous kimberlite pipe which yielded 81 diamonds (some of gem quality) in the Northwest Territories, northeast of Yellowknife. This spring, Dia Met expects to release results from a bulk sample taken from the property.

The highlight of each year’s roundup is the presentation of awards for outstanding contributions to exploration and mine development. This year, Clifford Frame was awarded the Edgar A. Scholz Medal for his many accomplishments in British Columbia and the Yukon, the most recent being the newly opened Sa Dena Hes zinc-lead mine near Watson Lake, Yukon, and development of the Stronsay lead-zinc deposit in central British Columbia. The Edgar A. Scholz Medal is presented annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to mine development.

The H.H. “Spud” Huestis Award was presented to C.M. (Mark) Rebagliati, who appropriately enough began his career in 1963 by taking the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines prospecting course before moving on to the Haileybury School of Mines and a degree in geological engineering at Michigan Technological University.

Over the last five years, Rebagliati was intimately involved in the discovery and development of the two of British Columbia’s three best known gold-copper porphyry deposits. He proposed and managed the program that resulted in the identification and staking of the Mt. Milligan terrain, and later directed the field program that drilled the discovery hole. In 1990, he identified the porphyry potential of the copper-gold mineralization at Kemess Creek and later initiated exploration which resulted in the discovery and confirmation of the Kemess South gold-copper porphyry system.

The “Spud” Huestis Award is presented each year to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the development of the mineral resources of British Columbia and the Yukon through the original application of prospecting techniques or other geoscience technology. The award was established to honor H.H. “Spud” Huestis who is best known for his work resulting in the development of the province’s first porphyry copper mine, now the site of the Highland Valley partnership, the world’s third largest base metal mine.