Excellent article! One of the things that caught my eye was the talk about a smelter that could be supported by ore from nearby Galore and Schaft Creek. 

herbie1 

Here is an excerpt.

https://aheadoftheherd.com/parties-mining-and-energy-policies-scrutinized-ahead-of-bc-election-richard-mills/

 “We’re going to look for every opportunity possible to add value to those minerals. We want to make sure there are options to build additional smelting or other activities to make sure we have more finalized products leaving this province,” said Rustad.

Mainstream media skipped over this part, probably not knowing what it means, but to us at AOTH it’s an acknowledgement of the lack of mineral processing/ refining facilities in BC.

The Golden Triangle district of northwestern British Columbia is an excellent place to shore up new copper supply and to build smelting and refining capacity.

“53 per cent of the exploration spending in B.C. in 2020 went to the northwest of the province, home of the Golden Triangle exploration and mining district around Stewart B.C.” — Gordon Clarke, director of the B.C. Mineral Development office

BC’s Golden Triangle is the West’s solution to its copper supply dilemma

British Columbia produces just over half the nation’s copper compared to 29% in Ontario and just 6.5% in Quebec. The only copper processing facilities in Canada are the Horne smelter located in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, and the CCR refinery in Montreal.

All the copper mined from British Columbian operations is shipped to Asia.

While there has been talk of building a refinery in BC for decades, so far the political will hasn’t been there. The smelter’s ore feed could not only be derived from the gant Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) deposit being developed by Seabridge Mining, but all of the neighboring deposits, including Red Chris, Schaft Creek, Galore Creek, Newmont’s Tatogga, and no doubt from the many deposits waiting to be discovered. Elsewhere in BC, Teck’s partially owned Highland Valley, Gibralter and Copper Mountain could potentially supply feedstock for a BC copper smelter/hydromet. And the Yukon has a lot of copper, Carmacks and Casino for example.

The key to this plan, wild as it may seem, is the smelter must have the ability to process copper and gold. Well it just so happens that Teck Resources, part-owner of Highland Valley, Galore Creek and Schaft Creek, has the technology to do it.