Vancouver — With production and maintenance employees ratifying a labour contract at the Kemess mine, 430 km northwest of Prince George, Northgate Exploration (NGX-T), has now focused on expanding resources at Kemess North.
"We are pleased to have finalized this new three-year labour contract following lengthy negotiations," said Ken Stowe, president and CEO of Northgate. "At Kemess North, with drilling now started, we are excited about the prospect to expand the resources identified in last year’s program and look forward to announcing our first set of results within six weeks."
Northgate has kicked off an exploration drill program at its Kemess North project. A total of four drills are now spinning for a proposed 34,000 metres of core holes. The program is budgeted at $5.4 million and has been funded by the company’s flow-through financing that was completed at the end of last year. Northgate states that the program is designed to determine the ultimate extent of the high-grade porphyry dome structure that was discovered last year as well as expand the overall size of Kemess North.
Kemess North, which is 7 km north of the Kemess South gold-copper mine, hosts a resource of 442 million tonnes grading 0.4 gram gold per tonne and 0.23% copper. This calculation is based on a gold-equivalent cutoff grade of 0.6 gram gold per tonne and on gold and copper prices of US$325 per oz. and US90 per lb., respectively. The deposit hosts a higher-grade core of 170 million tonnes grading 0.5 gram gold and 0.29% copper, based on a cutoff grade of 0.6 gram gold.
Kemess is a 50,000-tonne-per-day operation that hosts reserves at the Kemess South deposit that are pegged at 145.9 million tonnes grading 0.65 gram gold per tonne and 0.24% copper. In 2001 Northgate’s targeted production was 275,000 oz. gold and 30,390 tonnes copper at a cash cost of US$200 per oz. gold (net of byproduct credits).
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