First Eagle gold now slated for September

Victoria Gold Corp. June 4 announced that it is on pace to pour the first bar of gold at its Eagle Mine in the Yukon about a month earlier than previously expected.

The soon-to-be gold producer said construction of the Eagle Gold Mine is now 95 percent complete and the first ore is slated to be stacked on the heap leach pad in July.

"Construction of the Eagle Gold Mine is nearing completion, ahead of schedule, and the operations team is ready to take advantage by advancing additional ore delivery to the heap leach pad in 2019," said Victoria Gold President and CEO John McConnell.

Current activities on site are focused on completing remaining mechanical, electrical and instrumentation installations at the secondary-tertiary crushing facility and the overland conveyor.

Commissioning of the primary crusher, conveying systems and gold recovery plant are already well advanced.

Development of the main haul road into the open pit is complete and pre-production mining has moved roughly 1.5 million metric tons of material ahead of schedule and below budgeted costs.

The original schedule had the first ore delivered to the heap leach pad in August. Running nearly a month ahead of schedule, Victoria is now looking to stack the first ore on the pad during the first half of July.

This means the first bar of Eagle gold would be poured in September.

"With gold approaching an all-time high in Canadian dollar terms, 70 percent of our costs in Canadian dollars, and first gold production in September, Victoria is perfectly timed to become Canada's next gold producer," said McConnell.

With the acceleration of the construction schedule, over 3 million metric tons of ore will be delivered to the heap leach pad by the end of this year.

The speedy schedule at Eagle Gold has not come at the expense of safety. Crews have now surpassed 1.4 million hours worked without a lost time incident.

In the meantime, Victoria continues to expand the Eagle Gold operations team. The management team and key supervisors are in place, and approximately 181 of the operations team have been hired.

Once all positions are filled, the company hopes more than half of the employees are Yukon residents.

So far, roughly 48 percent of the staff are Yukoners, including several citizens from the First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun, the traditional territory where Eagle Gold is located.

"With a steadfast focus on all of our stakeholders including shareholders, employees, the local community and Yukon Territory, we look forward to a strong start of a long, responsible and profitable operation" said McConnell.

–SHANE LASLEY