Curragh turnaround at Faro

If the same people running the huge lead/zinc/ silver/gold mine here had been running this open pit from day one in 1970, chances are it never would have been forced to shut down for four years between 1982 and 1986.

The 430 workers at privately- owned Curragh Resources (pronounced KERR-a) have staged a miraculous turnaround at this mine.

They are now mining the 27.5- million-ton deposit at a rate of 13,500 tons per day — 50% higher than the 720 workers at Cyprus Anvil Mining Corp. achieved in 1981. That company, which was held jointly by Dome Petroleum and TransCanada Pipelines, was forced to close the mine because of low metal prices.

And Curragh is achieving its production rate at about half of Cyprus Anvil’s total cost in 1981 (which was $131.21 per tonne of concentrate), The Northern Miner has learned after visiting the mine.

“We have settled some $15 million in commitments held by the previous owners and achieved positive cash flow a couple of months ago,” President Clifford Frame says.

A total of 583,000 tons of concentrates should be trucked from the mine this year and 627,000 tons are targeted for 1988. Concentrate production rates are about 550 tons of lead concentrate and 1,210 tons of higher-priced zinc per day.

The grade of the concentrate is about 62% lead and 50% zinc. Gold and silver values are reported in the lead concentrate.

Curragh has done so well, negotiations are under way to float the 54% interest in the company which is now held by Giant Resources of Australia.

But despite the optimism among company managers, most of the 1,000 residents of this scenic little town are not convinced the mine will remain open for more than a year, according to the co-ordinator of the local community centre.

Curragh has quite a different version of the future, though. Although there is only four years of mine life left in the Faro pit, there are three seperate mineable deposits — the Crum, Vangorda and Dy deposits — located just 8.5 miles to the southeast along the same calcareous/non-calcareous metasedimentary contact which hosts the deposit of massive and disseminated sulphides that make up the Faro deposit.

They will be developed beginning next year to supplement production from the Faro pit and to eventually replace it. Waste rock from the Faro pit is already being trucked in 170-ton trucks to an area where a haulage road to the deposits is being built.

Crum, the first of the pits to be developed, will likely come on stream in 1989, adding to the production from the Faro pit. It has reserves of about 44 million tons grading 9% combined lead and zinc.

The Vangorda deposit is much smaller with about 6.9 million tons of ore at about the same grade.

And with some 2,208 claims in the area, totalling some 4,200 ha, Curragh is well positioned to find more lead/zinc ore in the area. In fact there are no other companies with ground in this part of the Yukon’s Selwyn Basin.

“Although geophysical data suggests we won’t likely find another Faro-size deposit, we have a reasonable chance of finding another Vangorda-size deposit on the Vangorda Plateau,” chief geologist Gregory Jilson says. “But the big question is what happens to the northwest. Variable thicknesses of overburden could be masking the response of a Faro-size deposit there, but even if it is not, there is a good chance of finding a high-grade deposit below pitable depths.”

In order to fund the ambitious pit development work and ore exploration programs envisioned by Curragh, industry analysts suspect the company will go public within 12 months.

“We may become a public company someday,” Frame says, “and it will likely be sooner (within a year) rather than later.”

Going into 1988, the company looks to be in good shape. By the end of November, enough waste rock will have been stripped from the B Phase area of the pit to expose enough ore for 19 months of production. High grade ore averaging 14% combined lead zinc is being stockpiled. It will be blended with low grade ore when it goes to the mill.

Waste-to-ore ratios are now 5:1 and should be down to about 3:1 next year.

The biggest bottleneck right now appears to be the milling. In order to get the added tonnage through the mill the company has had to cut down on the amount of regrinding. And, in a separate development, experiments should start this month on a 48-ft-tall flotation column which could replace a number of flotation cells in the mill.

The machine will likely increase concentrate grades but it is still unsure what it will do to recoveries.