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F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 8 www.resourceworld.com 73 MINING road and tidewater access and it has a Native Title, Heritage Protection and Mineral Exploration Agreement with the Indigenous owners that have rights and inter- ests in the area under Australian native law. On December 6 last year, Lithoquest started field work. Count says the "field program will focus on the four highest priority targets where composite rock samples of sus- pected (weathered) kimberlite were collected in April 2017 yielded kimberlite indicator minerals. Work includes ground geophysics, geologic mapping and rock sampling." Counts says data from this program will help define drill targets. n NorthIsle Copper and Gold advances North Island Project by Jennifer S. Getsinger, PhD, PGeo NORTHISLE COPPER AND GOLD INC. [NCX-TSXV] is moving along in its plans for porphyry copper and gold mine devel- opment on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia with its North Island Project near Port Hardy. The region is well known for the past- producing open pit Island Copper Mine of BHP Billiton near Port Hardy that produced some 1.3 billion kg copper, 31 million kg molybdenum, 340,000 kg silver, and 32,000 kg gold between 1971 and 1995. The area is known to host several other showings and deposits. NorthIsle Copper and Gold has put together a large land package extending northwest from the Island Copper mine site over much of the same ground held by its predecessors. Geologically, this area is underlain by Wrangellia terrane, block-faulted, mainly Mesozoic rocks such as the Karmutsen and Quatsino formations, and the Bonanza group volcanics, intruded by various felsic to intermediate plutons and dykes, many of Jurassic age. Several types of copper mineralization have been reported (in addi- tion to the big porphyry copper +/- gold deposits) such as skarns at the contacts of intrusives and carbonate rocks, as well as veins of native copper. According to a recent interview with Jack McClintock, President, CEO, NorthIsle acquired a large claim block on Crown land (33,000 hectares about 50 km along strike northwest from the site of Island Copper and 8 km wide), including known deposits at Hushamu, and 8 km distant, the Red Dog property. The entire land package is 100% owned. In September 2017, NorthIsle released a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) that demonstrated the potential techni- cal and economic viability of the project constructed as an open-pit mine, with a concentrator processing nominally 75,000 tonnes per day. Highlights of the PEA include an after tax NPV (8% discount) of CND $550.4 million, a 14.3% IRR and a 22-year mine life. Life-of-Mine metal production would be 1.8 billion pounds of copper, 1.7 million ounces of gold and 55 million pounds of molybdenum. Annual production is forecast at 82 million pounds of copper, 79 thousand ounces of gold and 3 million pounds of molybdenum. Initial capital costs are CND $1.34 billion plus sustaining capital of CND $139 million. Direct cash cost of production per pound of copper net of gold, molybdenum and pyrite concentrate is CND $1.17. The mine plan in the recent PEA is based on the following mineral resources. Indicated resources at Hushamu and Red Dog total 456,506,000 tonnes grading 0.20% copper, 0.25% gold, and 0.008% molybdenum. Inferred resources at Hushamu and Red Dog total 142,897,000 tonnes grading 0.14% copper, 0.20 g/t gold, and 0.009% molybdenum. Both deposits have very high rhenium contents in the 0.3 to 0.4 g/t range, which was not considered in the current PEA. The mine would be a conventional truck and shovel operation with electrified pit operations at Hushamu. A marine load-out structure and a 138 KVA BC Hydro substation exist at the reclaimed Island Copper Mine site about 27 km from the NorthIsle Project area. Continued exploration at the NW Expo prospect (near Red Dog) is planned along with development at Hushamu as well as continued exploration of the Pemberton Hills targets east of Hushamu. This ambi- tious grouping of the entire line-up of prospects as one large mining project could be an economical way to exploit the potential of the mineralized trend for sev- eral years. Key people at NorthIsle Copper and Gold are Dale Corman, Chairman of NorthIsle as well as Western Copper and Gold Corp. Jack McClintock is President and CEO, previously global exploration manager at BHP Billiton. He was winner of the PDAC 1999 Bill Dennis Award for Prospector of the Year as a member of the Rio Algom exploration team that discov- ered the Spence porphyry copper deposit in Chile in 1996. Cam Brown is a mining engineer with mine development experi- ence in Chile with Bechtel, who oversaw the PEA for NorthIsle. Cooperation among land-use groups and safe jurisdiction provide attractive ben- efits to working in this location. Northisle's claims lie within separate traditional ter- ritories of the Quatsino, Kwakiutl and Tlatlasikwala First Nations. In addition to mining and fishing, the Port Hardy region is also a traditional logging area for Douglas fir and western red cedar. As such, Western Forest Products maintains good road access, and a new power line has been extended to an emerging wind farm, contributing to the excellent available infrastructure. n Geologist Emily Halle logging diamonds drill core from the North Island Project on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Photo courtesy NorthIsle Copper and Gold Inc.