Pretium’s high-grade gold strike wins it the “Academy Award of the geologic profession”

1 of 2The president and chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Pretium Resources Inc., Robert Quartermain. — Photo courtesy Pretium Resources Inc.

2 of 2Construction of a mine at Pretium's high-grade gold Brucejack Project, approximately 65 km north of Stewart, British Columbia, could begin as early as 2015. — Photo courtesy Pretium Resources Inc.

It doesn't get much better than this for Robert Quartermain, president and chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Pretium Resources Inc.
On March 4, 2013, his company will be presented with the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada's Bill Dennis Award for advancing a high-grade gold strike at the Valley of the Kings, within the company's rich Brucejack Project in northwestern British Columbia. Pretium will receive the award, which recognizes a Canadian discovery or prospecting success, during PDAC's annual convention in Toronto.

Also, at the end of 2012 Pretium plans to file a project description for its Brucejack Project, which starts the permitting process for a proposed mine that could be operational as early as 2016.

All this isn't bad for a company that celebrated its second anniversary on December 21, 2012. And for Quartermain, who has spent 35 years in the mining industry, this strike represents something special.

"The fact that we were able to take a drill intercept that occurred in 2009 and translate it into one of the more exciting projects going on globally, and have that recognized by our peers, is quite an honour," Quartermain said about both Pretium's recent exploration efforts at Brucejack and the Bill Dennis Award respectively.

"It's kind of the Academy Awards of the geologic profession," Quartermain said about winning the award. "So to be honoured in this way, we're extremely proud and grateful to the PDAC for recognizing our efforts."

In fact, Brucejack's Valley of the Kings zone's high-grade gold potential was first discovered when Quartermain was president of Silver Standard Resources Inc. That company owned the Brucejack Project in 2009, bored a drill hole and came up with a core sample that indicated an impressive gold ratio of 16,949 grams per tonne over an uninterrupted length of 1.5 metres.

By 2010 Quartermain had become chief executive officer of start-up company Pretium, which acquired Silver Standard and its Brucejack and nearby Snowfield projects at the same time as it announced an initial public offering for the new firm. Closure of both the acquisition and offering occurred on December 21, 2010.
Since then Pretium's exploration efforts have paid off in a big way. The Valley of the Kings zone's high-grade gold resources (5 grams of gold equivalent per tonne cut-off) now stand at 8.5 million oz. of indicated gold (16.1 million tonnes grading 16.4 grams per tonne gold) and 2.9 million oz. of inferred gold (5.4 million tonnes grading at 17 grams per tonne gold).

All that information regarding the indicated gold is mostly based on approximately 600 metres of the total strike length within the Valley of the Kings. Exploration has now extended to 1,000 metres, and more exploration remains open to the east and west, along strike and at depth.

What's more, although the majority of Brucejack's discovered mineral resource lies within the Valley of the Kings and the nearby West Zone to the north, there are four other zones within the project that contain gold-silver mineralized areas.

But Quartermain said Pretium has already found enough indicated and inferred gold to justify a mine. The company received an updated preliminary economic assessment (PEA) concerning a possible underground gold-silver mine at Brucejack in February 2012. A feasibility study is also underway and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2013.

The PEA (which used a base case of U.S. $1,100/oz. gold, U.S. $21/oz. silver and an exchange rate of U.S. $0.93:C$1.00) called for a mine life of 24 years, with a total estimated production of 6.9 million oz. of gold and 17 million oz. of silver. However because the project's indicated and inferred resources have grown since the PEA was produced and because a proposed mine's daily processing production has increased, Quartermain said a potential mine would now operate for at least 16 years.

He also said that after filing a project description at the end of 2012 the company could file an environmental impact study in 2013 and receive all necessary permits for a mine in 2014. Subject to the feasibility study's results and securing all permits, mine construction could begin in 2015, with commercial production beginning in 2016.

But Pretium still has exploration plans for Brucejack in 2013. An underground exploration program is already underway. The plan is to widen an existing tunnel network in the West Zone, bore south 450 metres to the Valley of the Kings, then build a new tunnel along some of the length of the high-grade gold strike and examine its continuity.

The company also plans to excavate a 10,000-tonne bulk sample while boring through the high-grade deposit during the first half of 2013.