The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Ensuring local lab capacity to support gold mine operations North of 60 Mining News – September 22, 2023
Ascot's Stewart lab has the capacity to process 250 samples per day, including fire assays and multi-element analysis.
Ascot Resources Ltd. Sept. 19 announced that it has acquired a full-service assay laboratory facility about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the company's Premier gold mine project near Stewart, British Columbia.
Seacan Labs Corp., a BC-based company that constructs and commissions modular labs for the mining industry, installed a full-service assay lab at the World Port facility in Stewart, BC, early last year.
This lab has the capacity to process roughly 250 samples per day, including crushing and pulverizing, fire assay gold analysis, and ICP-OES multi-element analysis.
Since that time, Ascot had been utilizing Seacan's services at this new hometown lab to analyze drill samples, as well as environmental testing at Premier.
To ensure that there will be lab availability to meet the needs of the Premier gold mine, slated to begin production early next year, Ascot acquired the Stewart assay lab for C$3.55 million (US$2.63 million) – C$500,000 (US$370,000) in cash and 5.69 million Ascot shares.
"The acquisition of this fully functioning assay laboratory facility in Stewart is a key component of preparing Ascot for production at the Premier Gold mine," said Ascot Resource President and CEO Derek White. "This facility will benefit the project's full mining life cycle through exploration, production, and environmental monitoring."
Ascot is now in the process of planning for the staffing and operation of the lab ahead of targeted first production start at Premier during first quarter of 2024.
Ascot says the lab may have some excess capacity beyond the needs of Premier that could be made available to third parties in the area for a fee.
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.
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