Oct. 12--Employees of the Rock Creek mine, located north of Nome, have begun pouring gold collected from the open pit hard rock gold mine, Carl Gagnier, vice president of operations for NovaGold Resources Inc., said during a presentation in Anchorage Oct. 2.

Gagnier told the Resource Development Council for Alaska that the mine, which has a mill capacity of 7,700 tons a day, poured its first gold on Oct. 1. The mine, which has an anticipated life of four to five years, is employing about 130 workers, and running two 12-hour shifts daily, 365 days a year, Gagnier told RDC members.

The junior mining company announced Sept. 19 the start of production at Rock Creek, after receiving regulatory authorizations from the state of Alaska. Company officials said the Nome operations team had been mining and stockpiling ore as part of the commissioning process, and had nearly 450,000 tons of ore ready at the time, representing some two months of full throughput.

At full commercial production, the mine is expected to produce about 100,000 ounces of gold annually with life-of-mine cash costs estimated at $500 (U.S.) an ounce.

At current metal prices, NovaGold anticipates generating $25 million to $35 million a year in cash flow from Rock Creek. Mining company officials said in September that their construction costs had reached $200 million.

NovaGold's Nome area operations, including the Rock Creek mine, have a proven and probable reserve of 510,000 ounces of gold, with 1.81 million ounces of measured and indicated resource and an additional inferred resource of 330,000 ounces of gold, according to company reports.

NovaGold officials have said there is potential to expand production at the Nome operations and extend the mine life beyond 10 years. Exploration this year has focused on further evaluation of the potential to develop the Saddle, Big Hurrah and Nome Gold targets, where resources have already been identified. Drilling around the pit margin at Rock Creek has shown positive results with new gold mineralization identified from ongoing work, the company said.

While gold mining is part of the colorful and celebrated history of Nome, Rock Creek, on land owned by the Bering Straits Regional Corp., and Sitnasuak, the Alaska Native village corporation for Nome, is the first hard rock mine on the Seward Peninsula.

That's a concern to some Nome residents, like Sue Steinacher, who notes this is an entirely different process than the placer mines of Nome's history. Those residents say the rock in the area contains arsenic and certain acids.