Exploration up 28 per cent
Only projected increase among the territories
Karen K. Ho
Northern News Services
Saturday, November 13, 2015
NUNAVUT
According to a new report from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), Nunavut is the only territory where exploration expenditures are expected to go up.
Scoop operator Roland Nakoolak works underground at Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.'s Meliadine project. The company has significantly contributed to the territory's projected exploration expenditures, which Natural Resources Canada expect to go up 28 per cent this year. - photo courtesy of Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.
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The department's revised spending intentions for exploration in each of the provinces and territories show that Nunavut's amount has risen to $202.5 million, up from $158 million last year, a projected increase of 28 per cent.
NRCan said this includes on-mine site and off-mine site activities, field work, overhead costs, engineering, economic and pre- or production feasibility studies, environment and land access costs.
The information comes from the federal-provincial-territorial survey of mineral exploration, deposit appraisal and mine complex development expenditures.
According to the latest report, the significant majority of spending in Nunavut this year is expected to be for precious metals at 160.3 million or 79.2 per cent. In 2014, spending on exploration of precious metals was $125.8 million.
Senior companies in Nunavut are expected to spend the majority at $122 million or 60 per cent of the total exploration funding. In the territory, $80.8 million or 40 per cent of the spending is projected to be on grassroots exploration, the remainder on deposit appraisal.
Much of the exploration spending projected for this year comes from mining company Agnico Eagle. Earlier this year, the company staked even more property near its Meliadine gold project, located about 25 kilometres north of Rankin Inlet and 290 kilometres southeast of the company's Meadowbank mine.
The company stated in its news release regarding its third quarter earnings last month it recently staked claims totalling 68,012 hectares on land west-northwest of Meliadine, an advanced stage project. The company said after nearly 800 rock samples were collected, 21 of them returned values above 1 gram of gold per tonne, including seven with more than 10 grams of gold per tonne and a maximum value of 42 grams of gold per tonne.
Agnico Eagle also completed 108,000 metres of drilling in 378 holes at its 114,761 hectare exploration project, Amaruq.
According to the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, as a share of projected investment across Canada, Nunavut remains in fifth place and the NWT rises to seventh place among all the provinces and territories.
NRCan projects that total Canadian exploration and deposit appraisal expenditures for 2015 will be $1.9 billion, a decrease of seven per cent from $2 billion recorded last year.
