More high-grade cut near Red Dog

Vancouver — Since launching production at its Red Dog mine in 1990, Cominco, now part of Teck Cominco (TEK-T), has been slowly outlining a world class zinc district in northwestern Alaska.

On the back of defining an inferred resource of 17.2 million tonnes grading 15.8% zinc, 4.8% lead and 17 grams silver per tonne at the Anarraaq deposit some 10 km from its Red Dog mine, exploration drilling another 3.5-km to the north has cut the highest-grades yet encountered in the area.

The 2001 exploration season saw the major punched 8-holes into the 7-by-1-km gravity geophysical anomaly, which hosts the Anarraaq deposit. All the holes cut significant sulphides with four of them returning impressive zinc grades. Hole 1114 was drilled into the north-central part of the anomaly and received the honor of yielding the richest grades – 23.8 metres grading 20.9% zinc and 3.2% lead from 991.8 metres down-hole. Included in this interval was a 5.2 metre section running 45.8% zinc and 3.5% lead.

Collared 2-km north of the hot intercept, hole 1120 cut 4.7 metres grading 21.1% zinc and 1.7% lead from 688.6 metres down-hole.

Further north, holes, 1109, 1112 and 1113 all hit massive pyrite ranging from 9-to-25 metre thick but failed to return any significant values.

Moving 1.2-km south of hole 1114, hole 1116 hit 7.3 metres grading 7.7% zinc, 1% lead and 6.2 grams silver from 809.2 metres down-hole.

Collared some 500 metres south of the Anarraaq deposit, hole 1115 returned 13.7 metres grading 7% zinc, 3.5% lead and 15.6 grams silver from 353 metres down-hole.

The southern most hole to test the anomaly, 1119 was collared about 1.5-km south of the Anarraaq deposit cutting 4.7 metres of massive pyrite yielding no significant values.

With Red Dog already the richest zinc mine in the world, the discovery of Anarraaq in 1999 opened up a whole new promise for the region. The latest drill results confirm that a zinc district potentially richer than any other in the world is developing in the area.

Although mineralization was first discovered in the area in 1953, the Red Dog discovery is credited to the late Robert Baker of Kotzebue, Alaska and Irving Tailleur of the U.S. Geological Survey, who in 1968 was mapping the De Long Mountains. Baker, a bush pilot, spotted a rusty zone while flying over Red Dog Creek. Tailleur visited the site and collected samples yielding 2% lead and 1% zinc. These finding were included in a usgs open file published in 1970. The report quickly caught the eye of Cominco but native land claims issues prompted the major to cool its heals for a number of years. Finally by the early 1980’s, Cominco was given permission to move ahead with the project.

Located 1,000-km northwest of Anchorage, the Red Dog mine Red Dog produced 133,000 tonnes of zinc in concentrates in the third quarter. Historically low zinc prices resulted in an operating loss of $6 million during the period, compared with an operating profit of $34 million in the corresponding period of 2000. The average zinc price came in at US37 per lb. in the third quarter, down from US53 per lb a year earlier.