Vancouver – The Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia (AME BC) has named its swath of award winners for 2008. These BC industry leaders will be honoured at the Annual Awards Dinner on January 28th, during Mineral Exploration Roundup.
The H.H. “Spud” Huestis Award for excellence in prospecting goes to Michael Savell for his dedication to the Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) project during all stages of exploration. First with Noranda, then with Falconbridge, Savell championed the project and with his team grew its gold resources. When Xstrata bought Falconbridge, Seabridge Gold acquired KSM and Savell followed the project. KSM recently produced a healthy preliminary economic assessment forecasting a 30-year mine life producing 19 million oz. gold, 5.4 billion lbs. copper, 64 million oz. silver, and 32 million lbs. molybdenum.
Scott Broughton, John Mirko, and David Skerlec are sharing the E.A. Scholz Award for excellence in mine development. Led by these three men, Roca Mines opened the MAX molybdenum mine south of Revelstoke, the first new metal mine in BC in eight years. The team optioned moly claims when the metal’s price was still low, developed a mine plan that sourced high-grade ore first, and bought and retrofit an old mill instead of building a new one. MAX is also in an environmental and socially sensitive area, water that the team navigated well.
The Murray Pezim Award for perseverance and success in financing mineral exploration goes to Robert Quartermain, who has raised over $500 million to advance Silver Standard Resources. Quartermain joined Silver Standard as president in 1985; since 1993 the company’s reserve and resource base has grown to over 1.6 billion oz. silver and 5.6 million oz. gold.
The Hugo Dummett Diamond Award goes to a team of four men: Ken MacNeill, George Reid, Harvey Bay, and Pieter Du Plessis of Shore Gold. The four men consolidated and systematically evaluated the large, widespread Star-Orion South diamond project in central Saskatchewan, a project now under economic study. In doing so they transformed Shore Gold from a small junior to a mid-tier company close to a development decision.
Charles Forster is the recipient of the Colin Spence Award for global mineral exploration. Forster led Ivanhoe Mines in delineating the Oyu Tolgoi project in southern Mongolia, now home to 45 million oz. gold and 80 billion lbs. copper. It is the largest copper-gold discovery in 20 years. Forster has worked all over the world as a geologist since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1974.
The Robert R. Hedley Award for excellence in social and environmental responsibility is being awarded to Robert Carpenter. After twenty years of experience in northern Canada, Carpenter founded Kivalliq Energy and then won an open-bid process for the historic Lac Cinquante uranium deposit in Nunavut. His success stemmed from a collaborative negotiation process with the Inuit people, which allowed the Inuit to become shareholders, extended their royalty structure to federal lands surrounding the deposit, and provided them with a 25% back-in right and related business opportunities.
And Bill Mercer will take home the David Barr Award for excellence in leadership and innovation in mineral exploration health and safety. Mercer is chair of the Health and Safety Committee of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and he has spearheaded the development of health and safety guidelines for the global mineral exploration industry.
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