The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Ascot reports results from first deposit at new Premier Mine North of 60 Mining News – February 25, 2022
Crews are upgrading the Premier mill in preparation for the first ore to be delivered from Big Missouri later this year.
Ascot Resources Ltd. Feb. 22 reported high-grade gold intercepts from its 2021 drilling at Big Missouri, the first deposit to be mined with the start of modern operations at the company's Premier gold-silver project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Home to a past-producing mine that last operated in the 1990s, Premier has all the major infrastructure in place to resume operations.
A 2020 feasibility study details plans for an operation at Premier that is expected to produce roughly 1.1 million ounces of gold and 3 million oz of silver over the first eight years of mining.
This production is based on 3.63 million metric tons of probable reserves averaging 5.45 grams per metric ton (637,000 oz) gold and 19.1 g/t (2.23 million oz) silver within the Silver Coin, Big Missouri, and Premier deposits; plus 2.55 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 6.52 g/t (534,000 oz) gold and 20.6 g/t (1.69 million oz) silver at the nearby Red Mountain property.
An 18,047-meter drill program carried out by Ascot last year focused largely on identifying new areas for prospective resource growth, especially around the Premier and Big Missouri deposits.
The final assays from this drilling were from 36 holes targeting areas where some of the early stopes will be mined at Big Missouri.
Highlights include:
• Seven meters averaging 10.04 g/t gold and 15.91 g/t silver from a depth of 139.8 meters in hole P21-2358.
• Six meters averaging 7.25 g/t gold and 4.57 g/t silver from a depth of 212.1 meters in hole P21-2363.
• 4.65 meters averaging 36.36 g/t gold and 24.1 g/t silver from a depth of 56.4 meters in hole P21-2373.
• Eight meters averaging 27.52 g/t gold and 11.4 g/t silver from a depth of 68.4 meters in hole P21-2379.
"Big Missouri is the first deposit Ascot is planning to mine this year and these high-grade drill results will assist the company in optimising initial mining activities. It is encouraging to see that the projected stope shapes have been generally confirmed, and in many cases extended, as we suspected they would with additional drilling," said Ascot Resources President and CEO Derek White.
Ascot says the gold mineralization in the holes at Big Missouri was encountered at or close to the expected elevations, which is critical for correct planning of the development drifts.
Gold grades vary from bonanza grade, including a 0.9-meter subsection of the hole P21-2373 intercept that averaged 184.5 g/t gold and 80.5 g/t silver, to highly anomalous. The company says this variation is expected in a coarse gold system where some drill holes do not intercept coarse gold particles.
These new drill holes tighten the drill spacing in these areas and provide additional pierce points from which to refine the stope shapes. The orientation and exact geometry of the stopes will be modified in some areas as new wire frames and block models are being generated to fine-tune the mine plan for the start of production.
"The company continues to expect to convert resources into reserves as additional drilling from surface and underground provides more detailed information on the optimal mining shapes," White added.
Ascot expects to begin underground development at Big Missouri in April and reach ore there by fall. This schedule puts the company on pace to start commissioning the upgraded Premier mill in October and be scaled up to commercial production by the first quarter of 2023.
Further information on the development plans at Premier can be read at Delays push Premier Mine costs higher in the January 28, 2022 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
Reader Comments(0)