PDAC sends Bill Dennis award to The Rock

Allan Keats was careful to thank those who matter most when he took the podium as a representative of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Keats-Stares clan, and winner of the Bill Dennis Prospector of the Year Award — one of seven presented during the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada awards evening.

“And a special thank you to our wives, who stood by us through many lonely days and nights. And because without them, there would have been many more lonely days and nights,” Keats said in his Newfoundland tongue, noting that the family had witnessed only two divorces so far.

That’s not bad considering that the “family” has sent no less than 18 men from five clans — Keats, Stares, Crockers, Barretts and Smiths — into prospecting over a 40-year period.

It all started with patriarch Ted Keats, Allan’s father, who now suffers from breathing problems and could not attend the awards ceremony.

Ted’s great grandfather, Suley Joe of the Mi’kmaq First Nation, returned to Port Blandford, Nfld., in the late 19th century with a high-grade silver sample that he had found on a hunting trip. As legend has it, he talked of a massive silver showing back in the bush.

The sample — and the legend — was passed down from generation to generation. In 1969, Ted and Allan took the silver nugget to Noranda’s Newfoundland office where they were offered prospecting work in the upper Terra Nova River area. They signed on for $250 per month plus food and supplies and were flown to a nearby lake. They never did find that lost silver showing, but they found some other impressive items along the way.

Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, Ted was involved in exploration leading to the Point Leamington, Burnt Pond and Tally Pond-Duck Pond base metals discoveries by Noranda.

Allan’s discovery of disseminated base metals mineralization and massive sulphide boulders, along with prospecting discoveries by others, including his brother Fred, kept Noranda in the Tally Pond-Duck Pond area. This led to the discovery of the Boundary and Duck Pond deposits by Noranda geologists in 1977 and 1986, respectively. Duck Pond was recently brought into production by Aur Resources (AUR-T, AURRF-O).

Adding to his earlier successes, Allan worked with his son Kevin to stake and explore the Linear and Joe Batts Pond gold properties in central Newfoundland, both now under option to Paragon Minerals (PGR-V, PAONF-O).

Brother Fred spent the last 35 years with Noranda (then Falconbridge and now Xstrata (XSRAF-O, XTA-L)). He is employed on the Raglan nickel project where he is credited with several discoveries.

Allan’s brother Calvin discovered the Linda and Snow White veins on the Golden Promise gold property in central Newfoundland and uranium showings in Labrador. The oldest brother, Suley, named after his grandfather, teamed with Calvin to discover stibnite boulders leading to the discovery of the Beaver Brook antimony deposit, also in central Newfoundland. And brother-in-law Calvin Crocker has prospected all over the world, most recently with Linear Gold (LRR-T, LGCFF-O) on its Ixhuatan property in Mexico.

Ted Keats’ grandsons carry on the tradition. Stephen Stares is the CEO of Benton Resources (BTC-V), which he runs with his brother Michael. The two discovered massive sulphides at the Aldina prospect, west of Thunder Bay, Ont.

Michael joined his uncle on stage to accept the award and told the audience that prospecting in northern Ontario has provided him with so many adventures that even “Indiana Jones would be jealous.”

PDAC president Pat Dillon, master of ceremonies for the evening, noted that the mining community has “a lot to learn” from how the Keats-Stares clan raised its brood.

e3 Awards

In a bold move, the PDAC pres- ented Gabriel Resources (GBU-T, GBRRF-O) with its Environmental Excellence in Exploration award, largely for the community engagement work Gabriel has done at its 10-million-oz. Rosia Montana gold project in Western Transylvania, Romania.

The project has been fraught with problems since the company first started exploring the area in the late 1990s. At one time, more than 20 non-governmental organizations opposed development of Rosia Montana; that’s now down to one.

“This is a great reward for doing things right and being accountable,” Gabriel president and CEO Allan Hill said.

The existing Rosia Montana open pit was operated by a state-owned company for decades. Over that period discharges were not monitored and now water supplies contain 3.4 times the legal limit of arsenic, and zinc, 110 times.

The World Bank estimates that 500 Romanian mines have been closed over the past 15 years, leaving the Romanian government cash-strapped.

Furthermore, the state-run RosiaMin operations officially closed at the end of May 2006, as was required under the agreement governing Romania’s accession to the European Union. But in its absence, unemployment in the village of Rosia Montana has soared to 70%.

Gabriel hopes to change that. The company says its US$2.5-billion project will create an average of 1,200 jobs during construction. That number will drop to around 600 once the mine enters production. At that point, a percentage of revenue from every ounce of gold will be set aside to reclaim the Rosia Montana lands and waters affected by resource extraction.

Gabriel submitted a 5,000-page environmental impact assessment almost a year ago and since then, has held 14 public meetings across Romania, as well as two in Hungary. The assessment includes restoration pledges that would be legally binding for the 17-year life of the project.

Gabriel plans to build a new school, medical clinic, and a community centre. It has already built a freshwater pipeline serving the nearby town of Bucium.

And to ease concerns that ancient Roman artifacts might be lost during development, Gabriel spent $10 million on the Rosia Montana National Patrimony Research Program, which has already saved numerous artifacts.

The Romanian government will soon decide whether to grant final approval for the project and the e3 award likely won’t hurt that process.

The other e3 award was pres- ented to Polaris Minerals (PLS-T, POLMF-O) for the way the company has built relationships with First Nations communities on Vancouver Island.

In 2001, Polaris began to search for construction aggregates along the B.C. coast as part of an overall effort to supply the burgeoning California aggregates market.

But before finding some promising deposits on Vancouver Island, the company approached local First Nations bands and asked for permission to explore on their traditional lands. Polaris even asked First Nations representatives to join the search for deposits, and provided First Nations with an early veto on development — uncharted waters for a mineral exploration company.

The Orca deposit was found about 4 km from the town of Port McNeill, B.C., on the edge of the Cluxewe River.

When Polaris applied for its mineral exploration permits for the Orca aggregate deposits, not one party opposed the project, a rare feat for an extraction company looking to mine on Vancouver Island. Even rarer were the numerous letters of support Polaris received from Island residents.

During exploration, Polaris stumbled upon waste that had been partially buried by another company that had worked in the area. Polaris decided to clean it up and budgeted $150,000 for the job, but would eventually spend about $600,000 to get it done.

Polaris owns 88% of the Orca quarry with the balance held by the Namgis First Nation. The Kwakiutl First Nation negotiated a similar interest in the form of an impact benefits agreement.

Orca is the largest sand and gravel quarry ever developed in Canada and contains enough aggregate material for at least 25 years of production. The $53-million Orca plant will process 6 million tonnes annually at full capacity.

Some refilling will be done with silt recovered from the plant, which us
es a closed-circuit water recycling system.

Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award

The Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award recognizes explorers credited with a mineral discovery anywhere in the world.

Northern Dynasty Minerals (NDM-V, NAK-X) received the award for its massive Pebble East porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in Alaska.

The original Pebble deposit, now known as Pebble West, was discovered in 1986 when a team from Cominco, led by Phil St. George, happened upon some gold showings in southwestern Alaska.

Despite outlining about 1 billion tonnes of inferred copper-gold-molybdenum mineralization, Cominco put the project on the shelf. Just before Cominco’s merger with Teck in 2001, Northern Dynasty executive chairman Robert Dickinson and president and CEO Ron Thiessen started talking to Cominco management about Northern Dynasty and Hunter Dickinson acquiring interests in Pebble. A deal was struck in two parts. The first involved all of the resource lands that embraced the Pebble West deposit in exchange for 1.8 million shares worth about $10 million. A 50% earn-in on the surrounding exploration lands required 60,000 ft. of drilling.

Northern Dynasty sent in a team led by international exploration manager Mark Rebagliati to examine the exploration lands.

The team found two porphyry deposits with only moderate grades but completed its earn-in requirements. Rebagliati and his team refocused on Pebble West, initially re-logging some 16,000 metres of core from earlier drilling.

The following season, Northern Dynasty returned and during that summer and the next, the company expanded the Pebble West deposit and upgraded 75% of its resource to the measured and indicated categories.

During the 2004 drilling program the geological team noted a gradual but progressive increase in the intensity of alteration, quartz veining and tenor of copper, gold and molybdenum concentrations over more than 1 km.

Drilling the following season went on well into October 2005 but resulted in the Pebble East deposit — and it was of significantly higher grade than Pebble West. What’s more, the deposit remained open in all directions.

The company recently released a new resource estimate. At a 0.6% copper-equivalent cutoff, the estimated inferred mineral resource in Pebble East now stands at 3.4 billion tonnes grading 1% copper equivalent or 42.6 billion lbs. copper, 39.6 million oz. gold and 2.7 billion lbs. molybdenum.

London mining house Rio Tinto (RIO-N) has purchased 19.8% of Northern Dynasty’s shares.

Dickinson, Thiessen, Rebagliati and resources manager David Gaunt accepted the award.

Distinguished Service Award

The invaluable support given to Canadian mineral exploration by government geoscientists was recognized by the PDAC with its Distinguished Service Award.

Public geoscience got its start in Canada under Sir William Logan, best known as the founder of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), which was created in 1841.

Under Logan, the GSC published the first geological map of Canada in 1869.

Public geoscience and this country’s geoscience knowledge continue to be a competitive advantage.

Mark Corey and Grant Abbott of the Geological Survey of Canada accepted the award on behalf of Canadian government geoscientists.

Corey acknowledged the work of the late Marie-Claire Ward, a staunch advocate of government funding for geoscience; while Abbott trumpeted the “real spirit of collaboration” between the GSC and the various provincial and territorial surveys.

Special Achievement Award

Tom Schroeter, the senior regional geologist with the British Columbia Geological Survey, was presented with the PDAC’s Special Achievement Award.

Schroeter is well-known in B.C.’s mining community, but his legacy will likely always be tied to the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum’s Special Volume 46: Porphyry Deposits of the Northwestern Cordillera of North America. In 1995, Schroeter steered a 12-member editorial board that published the nearly 900-page volume, after about three years of writing and editing. The publication is still considered the “bible” of porphyry deposits.

Viola R. MacMillan Developer’s Award

The Viola R. MacMillan award — given to a person showing leadership in management and development of mineral resources — was presented to James Gill, president and CEO of Toronto-based Aur Resources.

Gill started Aur in 1981 with $250,000. The company now boasts a market cap of roughly $2 billion — or 8,000 times its initial startup capital.

Gill started by buying a land package in Quebec’s Val d’Or camp. Between 1981 and 1989 that land package yielded eight small gold deposits, two of which — Norlarctic and Kierens — would become operating mines.

Not far away in the Val d’Or camp, Aur owned a royalty interest on the Louvicourt property, held by Quebec Crown corporation Soquem.

The ball really got rolling when Aur made the Louvicourt discovery in June 1989.

Not since Texas Gulf’s Kidd Creek discovery in 1963, had anyone in Canada found a base metals deposit the size of Louvicourt.

Louvicourt closed in 2005, but not before producing more than 1 billion lbs. of copper and about half that amount in zinc.

Aur used the cash flow from Louvicourt to buy a 70% interest in the Andacollo copper-gold mine in Chile (Aur now owns 90%). It also owns about three quarters of Chile’s Quebrada Blanca copper mine.

“These are very good times,” Gill said, accepting his award. “Yet I encourage you to be open to new ideas in mineral exploration. We can find new deposits here and develop them. Let’s get out there and do it.”