Project Overview
The Kutcho property is located approximately 100-km east of Dease Lake in the Liard mining division of northern British Columbia, and consists of one mining lease and 46 mineral exploration claims covering an area of approximately 17,060 hectares. The site is accessible via a 900-metre long gravel airstrip located 10 kilometres from the deposit and a 100-kilometre long seasonal road from Dease Lake suitable for tracked and low-impact vehicles.
The Kutcho property lies within the King Salmon Allochthon, a narrow belt of Permo-triassic, island-arc volcanic rocks and Jurassic sediments, situated between two northerly-dipping thrust faults: the Nahlin fault to the north, and the King Salmon fault to the south. The belt of volcanic rocks is thickest in the area where it hosts the volcanogenic massive-sulfide (VMS) deposits, partly due to primary deposition, but also due to stratigraphic repetition by folding and possibly thrusting. Mineralization occurs as three deposits along a 3.5-km trend. Sulfide minerals occur in a series of massive-sulfide lenses and include pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, bornite, minor chalcocite, and trace tennantite, galena, digenite, djurleite (similar to chalcocite), and idaite (decomposition product of bornite).
The Kutcho Project is envisioned to be an open-pit and underground mining operation. The Main deposit is designed to be mined primarily as a conventional shovel-and-truck, open-pit operation, with the deeper part of the Main deposit and Esso deposit being mined by underground longitudinal, long-hole stoping with cemented rock fill. After primary crushing at an average steady state rate of 4,500 tpd, an ore sorter utilizing an x-ray transmission (XRT) sensor would remove low-grade and waste material from the feed to the SAG and ball mills, followed by conventional flotation, regrind and dewatering circuits. Approximately 3,900 tpd of ore would report to the milling and flotation circuit after ore sorting.
The Project design includes extensive progressive reclamation, including the backfilling of the open pit and water treatment during operations and for the closure period.
Stream Details
| Date of Contract |
14-Dec-17 |
| Term |
Life of Mine |
| Stream |
100% of gold
100% of silver |
| Upfront Consideration |
$75M |
| Per Unit Production Payment |
20% of spot |
For more information on the Kutcho Project, please visit: www.kutcho.ca (opens in new tab)