High Integrity Ore
Mining and Minerals
By Staci Davidson   
Thursday, 19 July 2007
smc Yukon Zinc
As the development of its Wolverine deposit progresses, Yukon Zinc is confident it will remain competitive in the mining industry.
With a goal of combining the strengths of its projects, people and shareholders to build a successful base and precious metals exploration, development and operating company Yukon Zinc Corp. is dedicated to having top-performing operations. According to CEO Harlan Meade, this means the operations need to run efficiently, cost effectively and have minimum impact on the environment. Meade says operations of this kind ensure a company’s success.

“To be a good company in this industry, you need to be in the lower quarter of the cost curve,” he says. “You have to identify projects that will keep you there and have the lowest cost of capital. This will keep you competitive.”

The Wolverine deposit within the Finlayson district of Canada’s Yukon region is Yukon Zinc’s main operational focus right now; the company owns 100 percent of this deposit. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the company also owns 100 percent of the Ice copper deposit in the Finlayson district; within the Rancheria district, the company owns 60 percent of the Logan zinc-silver deposit and 100 percent of the Swift deposit, which primarily has base metals.

Recently, Exploration + Processing spoke with Meade about the company’s development of the Wolverine deposit, where it plans to grow in the future and how it plans to transition into a low-cost producer.

Exploration + Processing: How is work on the Wolverine deposit progressing?
Harlan Meade: We own 100 percent of the Wolverine deposit. We will begin construction on it in the next one to three months, so it is very close to becoming a mine. We expect to start production in early 2009. In the first quarter of 2009, we will commission the facilities, and by the second quarter, we will be in full production.

The timeline is dependent on having the project’s financing in place, but we are in a very good position with that right now. Having made the discovery in 1995, we are on schedule to start production in 2009. That is a standard time for the industry. The mine will produce three concentrates – zinc, copper and lead – and each concentrate will have a significant amount of gold and silver, which will be payable.

E+P: How are you improving your operations?
HM: That starts with the management team. Management helps ensure a well-organized project, which we see as something that is capital efficient and environmentally responsive – the environmental impacts are minimized. The operational risk also has to be mitigated. This means there is little waste, there is a high integrity of the head grade and we are able to optimize the amount of metal we get from the mill.

The goal is to maximize the debt leverage of the project. To do this, we need to be confident of the ore body and what will feed into the mill. [Plus], a good design provides extensive risk reduction, which will pay big dividends, [allowing] for greater profitability.

E+P: What is your overall vision?
HM: We plan to continue to focus on advancing Wolverine to achieve our goals of becoming a premier base metal mining company. First, we want to demonstrate that we can transition through development and build the project on time and on budget to become a producer. We will do that by demonstrating our quality development and operational team. Next, we will look for the ability to expand Wolverine and develop Logan. We need to prove we can do a good job at Wolverine development and leverage off of that success. It is all about focus, having a plan and knowing exactly where we want to get to. E+P
 
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