Minto up and running, Wolverine awaits financing

摘要

Mineral exploration in the Yukon in 2007 continued its dramatic rise from the past few years, with an estimated 130 million dollars spent on the search for base and precious metals, and uranium. Exploration for gold held the largest share of exploration expenditures, with 29 percent; followed by zinc and copper, 23 percent each; silver, 10 percent; uranium, 8 percent; and tungsten, molybdenum, nickel and others totalled 8 percent. Mine development expenditures have also increased to an estimated total of 72 million dollars. The bulk of development dollars were spent on the Minto copper-gold mine, which went into commercial production in October and at the Wolverine zinc-silver deposit, where road work and camp construction were finished. Final development of the Wolverine poly-metallic deposit will begin once additional project financing is raised. The total Phase 1 development costs at Minto were 100.2 million dollars over two years - this was 2 percent above the feasibility study estimate of 98.1 million dollars.