Resource World Magazine

a u g u s t / s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 5 www.resourceworld.com 11 T he Golden Triangle is a remote and rugged region in northwest British Columbia encompassing some 20,000 km 2 that is home to numerous outstanding mineral deposits such as Barrick's past- producing Eskay Creek Mine with annual production of 320,784 ounces of gold and 15.5 million ounces of silver, making it the fifth largest silver producer in the world. Other major deposits in the region include Galore Creek (Novagold Resources), Snip, Schaft Creek (Copper Fox Metals), Granduc, Big Missouri, the KSM Project (Seabridge Gold) and the new Red Chris copper-gold mine (Imperial Metals). However, it is the Brucejack Project of Pretium Resources inc. [PVG-TSX, NYSE], located about 65 km north of Stewart, that has been generating truly knock-your-socks-off assays. Proven and probable reserves in the Valley of the Kings stand at 6.9 million ounces of gold (13.6 million tonnes grading 15.7 g/t gold). Now in the advanced development stage, the project is expected to be in production in 2017. Mine life is projected to be 18 years, producing an estimated 7.27 million ounces of gold. Average annual produc- tion would be 504,000 ounces of gold over the first eight years and 404,000 ounces of gold over the mine life at a production rate of 2,700 tonnes per day. Gold recoveries would be 96.7% with silver recoveries of 90.0%. In an interview at Pretium's Vancouver head office, Robert Quartermain, Chairman, and Joseph Ovsenek, President, spoke to Resource World. Resource world: Was Pretium Resources created for the express purpose of acquiring and advancing the Brucejack Project? Robert Quartermain: Yes. Pretium was incorporated in October 2010 in order to acquire the Brucejack and Snowfield proj- ects from silver standard Resources inc. [SSO-TSX; SSRI-NASDAQ], [where he was President]. We closed Canada's third larg- est IPO for $283 million in December 2010. With that, we gave Silver Standard cash and shares for 100% of the Brucejack Project. Rw: From whom did Silver Standard acquire the project? RQ: The Brucejack Project was acquired by a merger between Silver Standard and Newhawk Gold Mines in 1999. At the time, Newhawk had spent a considerable amount of money exploring the West Zone where they had outlined about 16 million ounces of silver and 400,000 ounces of gold. Silver Standard was focused on buy- ing silver in the ground at five to 10 cents an ounce. We bought the project because of the silver. The significant gold values were found later. Rw: How would you geologically clas- sify the Brucejack gold-silver deposit? RQ: The Brucejack Project, which is mostly gold with some silver, is the epith- ermal portion of a much larger porphyry copper deposit. If you look at Pretivm's Snowfield and Seabridge's KSM deposits together, there is over 27.3 billion pounds of copper in all categories. So you have a large classic porphyry gold-copper system with epithermal high-grade gold discov- ered in the Valley of the Kings. Rw: Brucejack gold grades are truly remarkable such as hole VU-053 with 27,000 g/t gold over 0.5 metres, hole VU-032 with 4,030 g/t over 0.5 metres, hole VU-201 with 6,550 g/t over 0.5 metres and 3,180 g/t over 0.5 metres. At the beginning of Pretium's exploration programs, did you have any idea that Brucejack hosted such spectacular grades? RQ: When we acquired the project from Silver Standard they had already drilled over a hundred holes. One of the holes (SU-12) hit 16 kilos of silver and other holes hit high-grade silver. Hole SU-84 showed a seam of gold running through the rock, so I knew there would be high- grade gold underground. However, we are all impressed by the amount of high-grade gold that we continue to find; the Valley of the Kings deposit is open in all directions. Today, the resource at Valley of the Kings is defined in an area about 400 metres east- An aerial view of the Brucejack gold-silver project located 65 km north of Stewart, northwest British Columbia, now in the pre- construction stage. Photo courtesy Pretium Resources Inc. ❝We are all impressed by the amount of high-grade gold that we continue to find; the Valley of the Kings deposit is open in all directions.❞

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