Mineral Exploration

6 Mineral Exploration | amebc.ca ALL PHOTOS: VELOUR PRODUCTIONSŠAME Honouring Our Own The AME Awards celebrate the industry's best and brightest By ED BALON, ROB CARNE, ED KIMURA and JONATHAN BUCHANAN AME honoured its 2016 award recipients on January 25 during the AME Roundup 2017 conference. This marks the 40th year that AME has celebrated the important achievements made by leaders in the mineral exploration and development community in B.C., throughout Canada and internationally. H.H. "SPUD" HUESTIS AWARD CHRIS ROCKINGHAM, CARL EDMUNDS AND WADE BARNES Chris Rockingham, Carl Edmunds and Wade Barnes are the recipients of the H.H. "Spud" Huestis Award for Excellence in Prospecting and Mineral Exploration. It is often said that patience and perseverance surmount every dižiculty. The discovery of the Kemess East deposit epitomizes this. Under the leadership of Rockingham, the geological insight of Edmunds and the execution of Barnes, a blind porphyry gold-copper deposit was discovered and delineated. The recognition that the Kemess North deposit was terminated on its northern and eastern edges by faults led the team to search for the ožset under deep post-mineral cover. The first indications of a blind mineralized system were encountered in 2002. By the following year, with a large area of phyllic alteration and some low-grade mineralization, Rockingham, Edmunds and Barnes were confident that they were vectoring toward better mineralization. This was apparent in 2007 when their fourth hole intersected the longest mineralized intercept in the entire Kemess database to that point – but, perhaps more importantly, hole 24 intersected 162 metres of 0.62 grades per tonne gold and 0.53 per cent copper in potassic altered intrusive. At this point, however, all exploration stopped as the Kemess North open pit proposal was rejected by the federal government. While commodity price changes in 2010 made the concept of block caving appear viable, exploration did not resume again at Kemess East until 2013. The most recent drilling has confirmed and upgraded the initial resource estimation, with spectacular drill intercepts such as 628 metres of 0.53 g/t gold with 0.41 per cent copper, and the deposit remains open in some areas. E.A. SCHOLZ AWARD DON PARSONS AND STEVE ROBERTSON Don Parsons and Steve Robertson are the recipients of the 2016 E.A. Scholz Award for Excellence in Mine Development in British Columbia and/or Yukon. They are being honoured for their pivotal roles in advancing the Red Chris copper-gold project in northwestern British Columbia from development to commercial production between 2007 and 2015. Exploration at the Red Chris deposit was first reported in 1956, but its development began in earnest after the project was acquired in February 2007 by Imperial Metals Corporation, where Parsons was chief operating ožicer (as he is today) and Robertson was exploration manager. Imperial's engineering and development team, under Parsons's leadership, reappraised the existing engineering and feasibility studies and incorporated updated financial, political and technical data into their mine plan. Concurrently, Imperial began a deep drilling campaign under Robertson's direction to ascertain the ultimate size of the project. The results exceeded all expectations for tonnage and grade, and construction finally began in the summer of 2012. The Red Chris mine, treating 30,000 tonnes of copper-gold ore per day and employing 350 workers, including 120 Tahltan from local communities, commenced commercial production on July 1, 2015, and has operated since then without significant issues. Currently, it has a mine life of another 26 years. MURRAY PEZIM AWARD TERRY SALMAN The Murray Pezim Award was created to recognize perseverance and success in financing mineral exploration in British Columbia and Yukon. Terry Salman is the 2016 recipient of this award in recognition of his remarkable career in Canadian mining finance. Salman has been a leader in financing junior exploration and mid-cap to large mining companies over the past 35 years. He began his career at Nesbitt Thomson in 1973, rising from a research analyst to executive vice-president and director. There, Salman helped create the first mining team and established Nesbitt Thomson's first gold conference in Whistler, which ultimately became BMO's Global Metals & Mining Conference. Carl Edmunds, Wade Barnes and Chris Rockingham Terry Salman Steve Robertson and Don Parsons

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