The exploration team at Skeena Resources (TSX: SKE, NYSE: SKE) has been awarded the 2023 A.O. Dufresne Exploration Achievement Award for achieving exploration success and resource growth at the company’s flagship Eskay Creek gold-silver project in British Columbia.
The award is presented to an individual or team in recognition of exceptional achievements or distinguished contributions to mining exploration in Canada. It will be awarded to Skeena on May 1, 2023 during the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Awards Gala.
“We are honoured to receive this award and would like to thank CIM for the recognition of our exploration success at Eskay Creek. Led by Paul Geddes, our exploration team has had a number of significant discoveries which have ultimately increased our resources and reserves on the project,” Skeena CEO Randy Reichert said in a statement.
“We look forward to what the team continues to uncover at Eskay Creek, starting with the exploration at Eskay Deeps this summer,” he added.
The team at Skeena has been focused on brining back the past-producing Eskay Creek mine in Tahltan Territory of BC’s Golden Triangle, now classified as one of the highest-grade, open-pit gold-silver mines in the world.
The mineralization at Eskay has been the focus of considerable exploration activity dating back to 1932. During exploration in 1988, the 21A and 21B zone were first discovered, which eventually led to the opening of the Eskay Creek mine in 1994.
At one point, Eskay was the highest-grade gold mine in the world when in production. Between 1994-2008, the mine produced 3.3 million ounces of gold and 160 million ounces of silver at average grades of 45 g/t gold and 2,224 g/t silver.
The Eskay Creek property remains largely underexplored to this day, and Skeena has been conducting regional and near-mine exploration campaigns to bolster the resource and reserves base. The project currently contains open-pit reserves of 30 million tonnes at 2.99 g/t gold and 79 g/t silver in the proven and probable categories.
In the second half of 2022, the Skeena team confirmed the exploration potential of Eskay Creek with the expansions of its 21A, 22 and 23 zones, plus the discovery of new high-grade mineralization.
Also in H2 2022, the company published the project’s feasibility report, outlining an after-tax net present value of C$1.4 billion, using a discount rate of 5%, with an after-tax internal rate of return of 50.2%.