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In addition to exploring on 14 different mineral properties in Alaska, Full Metal Minerals may be considered an unofficial "welcome wagon" for the state's mineral industry.
"We're pretty proud of the fact that we've introduced seven new companies to Alaska," said Rob McLeod, vice president of exploration for the Vancouver, British Columbia-based junior exploration company. "Two of those companies, Metallica (Resources) and Andover (Ventures), have become quite aggressive in the state, acquiring new property on their own."
Currently, Full Metal has six of its 14 properties in Alaska optioned with other exploration companies. Those joint ventures can reduce the company's risk or create an opportunity to bring a partner into a property with specific technical expertise that can help advance the geological work, McLeod said.
Bringing new companies to Alaska "... creates a bit of competition for us, but it's a huge state with lots of mineral potential," he said.
Since going public in 2004 and acquiring its first mineral exploration properties in Alaska, Full Metal has spent about $20 million in Alaska, $7 million of that in 2007, he said. Full Metal's partners on the six optioned properties spent some $3.5 million more in 2007, McLeod said.
Companywide, work in 2007 included completing about 90,000 feet of drilling in Alaska, with as many as 80 people working for Full Metal or its contractors, he said. The company has acquired the largest land position of any public minerals exploration company in the state of Alaska, according to Full Metal's Web site.
Alaska offers mineral prospectors considerable under-explored terrain to work on, the primary attraction for Full Metal. "If you compare Alaska to British Columbia, there is about 10 percent of the exploration spending as B.C. in the same geological environment," McLeod said. "We just saw so many different opportunities up there for so many different commodities, and the ground has received minimal exploration."
The potential to find a large mineral deposit, such as the Red Dog zinc and lead mine, the Donlin Creek gold deposit or the Pebble copper-gold project, is another attractive factor about Alaska, McLeod said. "Those are some of the world's largest deposits, so it is real elephant country."
40 MILE BECOMES FLAGSHIP PROJECT
He's hoping the company is onto another large-scale base metal deposit discovery on the 40 Mile property, optioned last year from Doyon Ltd., the for-profit Alaska Native corporation in Interior Alaska.
Full Metal's 40 Mile property consists of 800,000 acres located in eastern Alaska, northwest of the community of Chicken and west of the Taylor Highway that connects the Yukon River village of Eagle with the state's road system.
Major prospects include Lead Creek, the Fish discovery and LWM (little white man) discovery, with several other targets scattered across the property. Full Metal began exploring the 40 Mile property in 2006, drilling the Fish prospect, located about 25 miles west of the Taylor Highway, and LWM, located about 4 miles southwest of Fish.
Full Metal continued work on those prospects in 2007, spending about $2 million on the property, completing a total of 21 drill holes. Six of eight holes drilled in 2007 at LWM encountered "significant intervals of massive sulphide mineralization," the company stated in a late July press release.
Some of the best results from LWM include a 21-foot intersection with grades of 31.6 percent zinc, 11.3 percent lead, 1.41 percent copper and 14.9 ounces of silver per ton of rock. Another hole produced a 146-foot intersection with grades of 15.9 percent zinc, 5.3 percent lead, .19 percent copper and 2.46 ounces of silver per ton of rock. Still another hole produced an 8-foot intersection with grades of 21 percent zinc, 26.1 percent lead, .59 percent copper and 10.9 ounces of silver per ton of rock.
"I do believe this is one of the most significant zinc discoveries in North America in a long time," McLeod said. "The whole region out there has come along in leaps and bounds over the past season. Materially, we're drilling $1,000 per ton, very rich ore. It's certainly our most exciting project and is turning into our flagship project."
The company also completed 10 drill holes on the Fish silver-zinc prospect at the 40 Mile property, releasing results from three holes in late August. Some of the best intercepts include a 26-foot section with grades of 12.3 percent zinc and .22 ounces of silver per ton of rock, and a 6.7-foot intersection had contained .3 percent zinc and 6.5 ounces of silver per ton of rock.
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WORK ON GOLD PROSPECTS
Full Metal also has several gold targeted properties, including the Lucky Shot property, located about 55 miles north of Anchorage, near Willow. Historic gold production from the area is more than 620,000 ounces of gold, at an average grade of 1 ounce per ton, according to historic records.
Drilling started in 2005 at the property and continued through this summer. Some of the best intercepts include a hole completed in 2005 that produced a 13-foot intersection that graded 7.04 ounces of gold per ton of rock, and a 2006 hole that contained a 3.9-foot section with a 4.3 ounce gold per ton grade.
Drilling results from 2007 released early this summer include a 3.2-foot section that graded 1.75 ounces of gold per ton of rock, from the Murphy Zone, a northeastern extension of the past-producing War Baby/Lucky Shot mine.
Full Metal completed about 57 holes, drilling 49,000 feet, at Lucky Shot in 2007, according to McLeod.
Other gold prospects held by the company include the CJ property, located on the Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska, a property optioned to Altair Ventures in 2007; the Moore Creek property in the Kuskokwim Region, optioned to Highbury Projects; the Golddigger prospect located about 30 miles north of Lucky Shot in central Interior Alaska and the Inmachuk property on the Seward Peninsula, optioned to Millrock Resources. Inmachuk offers both gold and silver-lead-zinc targets.
Full Metal also is exploring some copper-gold properties, including Mount Andrew, located in Southeast Alaska; the Pebble South property, located in the Iliamna Lake region and the Kamishak copper-gold property, located about 50 miles south of the Pebble deposit being explored by Northern Dynasty, and about 12 miles from tidewater.
Another large land package that Full Metal has put together is located on the Alaska Peninsula, covering 2,162 square miles of land. Full Metal signed exploration agreements with both the Bristol Bay Native Corp. and the Aleut Corp. to work on Native-owned land.
"This region hosts multiple base-and precious-metal prospects that have received only limited modern exploration," according to a company press release. Initial work is focused on targets near tidewater, according to the Full Metal press release.
"Our advantage is that the geologic understanding for these types of deposits has vastly increased since (the 1970s), and we are looking in areas that previous operators may have written off," McLeod said. "There are several targets on the Peninsula that have never been drill tested, which is rare to find in North America these days."
Finally, Full Metal and its partner Triex Mineral are exploring the Boulder Creek uranium project, located on the Seward Peninsula, about 100 miles northeast of Nome.
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