BOLIVIA’S ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN INSPIRES PIVOT TO MINING / 2 Geotech_Earlug_2016_Alt2.pdf 1 2016-06-24 4:27:20 PM
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Sitka Gold drills to expand RC gold project as Snowline steals Yukon limelight | Surging Tombstone Gold Belt holds several development opportunities
SITE VISIT
At the Red Chris copper-gold mine in B.C., owned 70% by Newcrest Mining and 30% by Imperial Metals. NEWCREST MINING
Newcrest interim CEO on Newmont merger, and why copper’s outshining gold EXCLUSIVE
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| Sherry Duhe says block caving is Newcrest’s ‘super power’
BY ALISHA HIYATE
herry Duhe has only been in the mining world for a year and a half. But she’s already been tasked with steering Australia’s largest gold miner, Newcrest Mining (TSX: NCM; ASX: NCM), through a merger with the world’s biggest gold producer, Newmont Mining (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM). The two gold miners reached a US$21.2-billion deal in May for Newmont to acquire Newcrest at what Duhe describes as a “very healthy” premium. “It’s all now public knowledge that they came back a number of times and bid again,” Duhe said during an interview with The Northern Miner at the AustraliaCanada Economic Leadership Forum in Toronto in July. While she says the early bids were “respectable,” Newmont had to come back quite a few times before Newcrest’s board “felt we could not say no,” she explained. “It needed to be a very healthy price because the company is not in distress and we were not up for sale.” Newcrest shareholders will vote on the deal in the fall, with the merger expected to close before the end of the year. Duhe joined Newcrest in February 2022 as CFO before being asked
Sherry Duhe, Newcrest Mining’s interim CEO. ALISHA HIYATE
to take on the interim CEO role just 10 months later when former CEO Sandeep Biswas retired amid investor discontent. Before Newcrest, Duhe spent close to three decades in oil and gas, most recently as CFO and executive vice-president at Australia’s Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS) and before that, with Royal Dutch Shell and others. Innovation gap While mining has a reputation for being too conservative next to its innovative oil and gas cousin, Duhe doesn’t see it that way. “Could we be looking across to oil and gas more to think about
some of the applications? I think we probably could. But the mentality (in mining) I would say is just as innovation-oriented as in oil and gas.” The Louisiana native — and now Australian citizen — points to Newcrest’s history as an innovator in block cave mining, a low-cost method of mining underground lower-grade porphyry ore. The company bought a 70% stake in the Red Chris project in British Columbia in 2019 because of the opportunity to apply the same technique, which it’s developed at its Cadia mine in Australia, and which Duhe refers to as Newcrest’s “super power.” A feasibility study on the underground gold-copper development is expected later this year. Where oil and gas does have mining beat, Duhe says, is in sharing best practices on technology. That happens more often in the energy sector because of more harmonized standards globally and because of the level of risk and danger involved in infrastructure such as offshore platforms and petrochemical complexes, she notes. “I think that all mining companies, regardless of what country you operate in, should be sharing best practices with each other. See NEWCREST / 5
Sitka Gold CEO Cor Coe holds a piece of core drilled from the RC gold project, located in the Tombstone Gold Belt in western Yukon. COLIN MCCLELLAND BY COLIN MCCLELLAND IN DAWSON CITY, YUKON
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or Coe might be the Maytag repairman of mining. He’s sure he’s got a good product but no one’s calling. The CEO of Sitka Gold (CSE: SIG) is sitting on the RC gold project in the Yukon with visible gold in assays, 1.3 million inferred oz. and a road right to his door. Yet Sitka’s share price has been stuck near 12¢ for eight months while Snowline Gold (TSXV: SGD), farther east in the territory about 200 km from the nearest main road, and without a resource estimate, has a $19-million investment from B2Gold (TSX: BTO) and a stock that’s surged 81% since the end of May. “It’s tough when you’ve got the market where it’s not really interested in gold deposits except for Snowline so I think if it wasn’t around, we’d be the golden boy here,” Coe told a tour group on site. “We got knocked off the pedestal.” Sitka is part of the surging Tombstone Gold Belt east of historical Dawson City that includes several early-stage projects such as those by Snowline, Banyan Gold (TSXV: BYN; US-OTC: BYAGF), Sabre Gold Mines (TSX: SGLD; US-OTC: SGLDF) and St. James Gold (TSXV: LORD). Victoria Gold’s (TSX: VGCX) Eagle mine is its only current Yukon hard rock producer in the belt that arcs from northern British Columbia, along the border with the Northwest
PATRIOT BATTERY POSTS FIRST LITHIUM RESOURCE, ALBEMARLE INVESTS $109M / 3
Territories then west to Kinross Gold’s (TSX: K; NYSE: KGC) Fort Knox mine near Fairbanks, Alaska. Boosters say area production could drown Dawson’s gold rush See SITKA GOLD / 10 PM40069240