- Seabridge Gold Inc (TSX:SEA) has updated its preliminary economic assessment for its KSM project in British Columbia
- The company is now looking to develop the high-grade Iron Cap deposit on the site much earlier in the mine’s life
- Iron Cap has increased the measured resource at the site by half a million ounces of gold and 177 million pounds of copper
- The KSM project is the company’s flagship property and the largest undeveloped gold reserve in the world by measured resource
- Seabridge Gold Inc (SEA) is up 1.8 per cent, with shares trading at C$18.95 and a market cap of $1.2 billion
Seabridge Gold Inc (TSX:SEA) has update its preliminary economic assessment for the company’s flagship KSM Project in British Columbia.
The KSM Project is the largest undeveloped gold reserve by measured resources. The company is now adding the high-grade Iron Cap deposit into the site’s resource estimate.
The Iron Cap deposit was drilled by the company in 2018 and 2019 and returned impressive results.
The deposit sits in a cave system which should significantly reduce the underground mining costs to explore it, with work going to reinforce the natural cave formation rather than blasting and drilling a path through to the resource.
The results at Iron Cap returned an increase in the mineral resource estimate by nearly half a million gold ounces and 177 million pounds of copper, along with an inferred resource increase of 7.45 million ounces of gold and 4 billion pounds of copper.
The intermediate miner does not believe this requires amending the Preliminary Feasibility Study and will instead update the mining plan to include the high-grade deposit. Seabridge has stated this has the potential for a dramatic improvement in project economics.
The CEO of Seabridge Mining Rudi Fronk said the PEA was undertaken to assess an alternate approach top developing KSM by including the much larger Iron Cap blocks cave mine into the production schedule.
“The benefits of incorporating Iron Cap into mine plans at an early stage have exceeded the upper end of expectations, not only for the improvements in projected economics but also for the reduction in environmental impact.
“The PEA is based on Iron Cap’s inferred resource estimate but we are very confident these resources will upgrade to higher categories with further drilling as they have in the past at the projects other deposits,” he said.
Seabridge Gold Inc (SEA) is up 1.8 per cent, with shares trading for C$18.95 at 9:45am EST.