AME BC announces 2007 award winners

B.C. mining industry big wigs and juniors alike are preparing for the Association for Mineral Exploration’s (AME BC) annual awards dinner on Jan. 30.

This year’s ceremony will honour a collection of mining industry associates who had a significant impact on their respective fields in 2007.

John Robins and Lawrence Barry will receive the HH “Spud” Huestis Award for excellence in prospecting and mineral exploration. Robins and Barry, of the Hunter Exploration Group, were nominated for their continuous efforts to generate new regional projects and fund major exploration programs in Canada.

Ron Thiessen, of Hunter-Dickenson, will receive the E.A. Scholz Award for excellence in mine development. Thiessen is credited with advancing the Kemess and Mt. Milligan copper-gold projects in B.C., and contributing to the reopening of the Gibraltar copper mine.

Rick Rule has won the Murray Pezim Award, which recognizes perseverance and success in financing mineral exploration.

RandyTurner, John McDonald, Walter Melnyk, and Nikolai Pokhilenko are the 2007 recipients of the Hugo Dummett Diamond Award for excellence in diamond exploration and development. The four recipients were the driving force behind the Snap Lake project, Canada’s first entirely underground diamond mine.

And Roman Shklanka is this year’s recipient of the Colin Spence Award for global mineral exploration. “Roman has an amazing ability to evaluate the true potential of overseas properties,” said Rob Pease, chairman of AME BC in a statement. “This ability to consider geological and economic risk over possible political risk has opened the doors to his success.”

AME BC will also recognize the first recipient of the newly created Robert R. Hedley Award for excellence in social and environmental responsibility. NovaGold Resources, known for its properties in Alaska and Western Canada, has won the award for its Galore Creek copper-gold project.

“NovaGold has gone beyond expectations and regulations to ensure their Galore Creek project is the most sensitive and socially responsible mine ever developed,” said Dan Jepsen, president and CEO of AME BC.

On Nov. 26, NovaGold and Teck Cominco, its partner in the project, announced the suspension of development at Galore Creek due to skyrocketing capital costs and slow construction.