The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
High-grade gold results from Lynx underscore future promise North of 60 Mining News – January 13, 2023
Eagle mine produces doré from a conventional open pit operation with three-stage crushing plant, in-valley heap leach, and carbon-in-leach adsorption-desorption recovery plant.
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Victoria Gold Corp. Jan. 10 reported that its Eagle Mine in the Yukon produced 43,741 ounces of gold during the fourth quarter and 150,182 oz gold for the entire year of 2022, both less than the company had originally anticipated.
"Fourth quarter and full year 2022 operating results were below expectations," said Victoria Gold CEO John McConnell. "Mechanical availability of the crushing and conveying circuit was lower than anticipated. The primary reason for the lower mechanical availability was the failure of the belt on the overland conveyor late in Q3 resulting in almost three weeks of downtime and lower year-over-year gold production."
In late September, the 1,500-meter overland conveyer that links and delivers ore from the crushing plant to the heap leach facility suffered a malfunction that Victoria determined needed replacement rather than repair.
Due to this downtime, the Eagle Mine fell short of Victoria's initial 2022 gold production guidance of 165,000 oz for the year, roughly down 14,000 oz from 2021 in the third and fourth quarters.
The company hopes to avoid future hangups and has taken action to better mitigate future losses.
"Looking forward, we have significantly improved our operational and maintenance staffing and protocols and expect to achieve materially higher gold production in 2023," added McConnell.
As Victoria moves toward increasing production in 2023 and beyond, the company continues to build gold resources and reserves to support expanded operations.
According to a late 2019 calculation, Eagle hosts 148 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.64 grams per metric ton (3.06 million oz) gold, while Olive, roughly 2,000 meters northeast of Eagle and the most advance-staged target on the company's wider Dublin Gulch property hosts another 7 million tons of reserves averaging 0.95 g/t (200,000 oz) gold.
While operations at Eagle are actively producing doré (bars composed of gold and silver), exploration has not stopped, and in the years up to its first pouring, an additional target has been outlined that could potentially add to the mine once up to feasibility.
Situated roughly 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) east of the Eagle deposit, the Nugget zone hosts the second-largest known intrusive body on the property.
In September 2022, the company announced the inaugural resource estimate for Raven, a large near-surface gold target that has been the focus of drilling for several years.
According to the maiden mineral resource estimate, Raven hosts 20 million tons of inferred resource averaging 1.67 g/t (1.1 million oz) gold.
With grades that are more than 2.5 times higher than the reserves at Eagle, Raven is emerging as a promising source of ore in the coming years.
Aside from the focus on Raven, Victoria also conducted diamond drilling and surface trenching at Lynx, a high-priority near-surface target about five kilometers (three miles) southwest of Raven.
The company says that Lynx exhibits similar characteristics to the Nugget and Raven targets and has ultimately seen limited exploration by previous operators, including preliminary drilling and trenching as far back as 1997, which received follow-up drill testing in 2004.
Since 2020, the Lynx target has undergone systematic exploration within the framework of Victoria's intrusion-related mineralization model.
Designed to extend the known near-surface gold mineralization as well as target its vertical extents, during the 2022 season, 27,215 meters were completed across the Dublin Gulch claim package, which included 1,971 meters in six drill holes and 12 surface trenches totaling 936 meters at Lynx.
"Exploration at Lynx in 2022 has demonstrated consistent gold mineralization across a large target area," said Victoria Gold Vice President of Technical Services Paul Gray. "Through the Lynx campaign multiple strong gold intercepts were observed and mineralization was established across 750 meters of strike length and over 300 meters in width."
Highlighted assay results for three fully and one partially received drill hole at Lynx include:
• 6.5 meters averaging 24.69 g/t gold from a depth of 170.5 meters in hole LX22-037C, including 2.5 meters averaging 63.32 g/t gold from 170.2 meters – these results are partial.
• 27.2 meters averaging 2.46 g/t gold from a depth of 70.3 meters in LX22-040C, including 0.5 meters averaging 83.9 g/t gold from 70.3 meters, and 7.1 meters averaging 1.89 g/t gold from 292.2 meters.
Highlighted assay results for 10 exploration trenches that have been received include:
• 38 meters averaging 1.11 g/t gold from a depth of 24 meters in hole TRLX22-030C.
• 10 meters averaging 1.06 g/t gold from 16 meters in TRLX22-031C.
• 44 meters averaging 0.62 g/t gold from 22 meters in TRLX22-032C.
To date, approximately 750 meters of mineralized strike has been tested at Lynx, and the target remains open in all directions, with particular potential defined to the east. Assays from four of the six drill holes and 10 of the 12 surface trenches dug at Lynx last year have been received.
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