By Angela Harmantas
Integra Gold Corp. (TSXV:
ICG) is the
latest in a growing line of mining companies utilizing the power of the Internet
to locate new discoveries, defying the industry stereotype of being slow to
adapt to the online world.
Mining companies are
notorious for embracing the status quo – using similar time-honored techniques to
explore and ultimately produce vast quantities of metals and minerals. The
threat of a disruptive technology is so pervasive that many of the sector’s
innovators either apply their ideas elsewhere or fall in line with the
traditional methods of doing business. Now, in light of the industry’s
struggles with financing and cost control, as well as slagging commodity
prices, mining executives are championing new ideas.
Recently, Integra
launched its Gold Rush Challenge, a crowdsourcing platform that the company
hopes will lead them to a literal gold mine. In return for analyzing and
interpreting 6 terabytes of historical data, Integra is putting up $1 million
in prize money for online prospectors who are able to pinpoint the area with
the highest probability for a major gold discovery.
The idea for the
challenge presented itself last October, when Integra completed its acquisition
of the Sigma/Lamaque Mine and Mill complex adjacent to its existing Lamaque
South project, located in Val d’Or, Quebec. Alongside the purchase came 75
years worth of historical data on the propertyincluding over 30,000 historic drill
holes, more than 50,000 gold assays, and hundreds of kilometres of mined
underground workings. Somewhere in this historical data, Integra believes, lies
another gold discovery.
The company is in the
process of digitizing the information – all of which is proprietary – and
putting it online by September 2015, through a special website.
Integra’s Gold Rush
Challenge was announced less than two weeks after another Canadian junior,
Abitibi Royalties, launched The
Royalty Search, a website which offers to pay the claim fees associated
with either existing or new mineral properties. In exchange, Abitibi will
receive a royalty on that property. The turnaround time from submission to
response is 48 hours.
These novel methods of
discovering new deposits may be outside the norm, but they aren’t entirely new
in the mining industry. In the early 2000s, Goldcorp’s flagship Red Lake mine
was producing a paltry 50,000oz of gold per year. Rob McEwen, then Goldcorp’s
CEO, took the unorthodox decision of making the company’s geological data
available to the public with the instructions to find the next 6 million ounces
of gold in return for a $575,000 prize. (Sound familiar?) The risk paid off,
with more than 110 new sites identified and over two in three yielding new gold
reserves.
Whether Integra Gold or
Abitibi Royalties are successful in their new ventures remains to be seen, but
the fact that companies have stepped outside the tried-and-true methods is a
promising sign itself.
