Expatriate eyes Wolverine-Logan combo

Vancouver — In 2001 Expatriate Resources (exr-v) halted a 2-year effort to develop Teck Cominco‘s (TEK-T) Kudz Ze Kayah deposit in the Yukon in combination with its 60%-owned Wolverine base metal find. Now the junior is once again looking to advance Wolverine, this time with the Logan property, 170 km to the southwest.

Expatriate agreed to acquire a 60% stake in Logan from Energold Minerals (EGD-V) in return for $1 million, half of which is payable upon the start of commercial production. The deal calls for an initial payment of $50,000, plus three installments of $50,000 paid over 18 months and $300,000 worth of Expatriate shares. As a partial payment, the Harlan Meade-led company issued 2.5 million shares. Almaden Minerals (AMM-T) will retain a 40% carried interest in the property

The Logan project is 96 km west of Watson Lake and hosts a mineral resource of 12.3 million tonnes grading 6.17% zinc and 26.4 grams silver per tonne. The calculation is based on 103 diamond drill holes completed from 1982 to 1989.

A 1.1-km-long zone of sheeted fracture and stockwork vein mineralization hosted in granodiorite defines the deposit. The steeply dipping tabular zone ranges from 50 to 140 metres in width. About 90% of the total resource is within 200 metres of surface and is considered amenable to open-pit mining.

The Main zone of mineralization is open at depth, indicating potential for supplemental ore mined from undergound.

Expatriate is evaluating the development of Logan as 3,000-to-4,000-tonne-per-day open-pit operation with an adjoining flotation mill facility, which would also process material from the Wolverine deposit.

The combined operation will have a better-quality concentrate, resulting from the blending of high-selenium Wolverine ores with Logan’s clean zinc-silver ores. The cost benefits of reduced penalties in the resulting concentrates could help offset the cost of hauling the ore some 170 km from Wolverine to Logan. Expatriate also intends to investigate the potential for heavy-media-separation techniques to upgrade Wolverine ores prior to shipping to the proposed Logan mill.

Early-stage modeling suggests the Logan-Wolverine development would produce 220,000 tonnes zinc concentrate annually, along with copper and lead concentrates containing approximately 5 million oz. silver and 18,000 oz. gold.

Expatriate owns a 60.6% interest in the Wolverine deposit, with Atna Resources (ATN-T) holding the remainder. At last count, the deposit held a resource of 6.2 million tonnes grading 12.66% zinc, 1.33% copper, 1.55% and lead, plus 371 grams silver and 1.76 grams gold per tonne.