The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - November 13, 2024
A recently updated PEA envisions ore from the Ranch deposits being processed through a plant near the Bonanza Ridge deposit on the Lawyers side of the consolidated project.
Thesis Gold Inc. Nov. 13 reported the discovery of a new zone of near-surface gold mineralization at Lawyers-Ranch that underscores the potential for new deposits to complement those already included in the recently updated preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for developing a mine on this gold-silver project in Northern British Columbia's Toodoggone Mining District.
The updated PEA published in September outlines plans for a mining operation at Lawyers-Ranch that would produce 2.32 million oz of gold and 56.4 million oz of silver, or 4 million oz gold-equivalent, over 14 years.
The PEA envisions a 12,600-metric-ton-per-day operation that would process ore from four deposits on the Lawyers side of the consolidated land package and several smaller open pits at Ranch, which lies immediately to the north.
At an average gold price of $1,930 per oz and silver price of $24/oz, the operation in the PEA is anticipated to generate an after-tax net present value (NPV) of C$1.28 billion ($950 million); an after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 35.2%; and pay back the estimated C$598.5 million ($442.9 million) initial capital expenditures in two years.
This PEA is based on 82 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 1.11 grams per metric ton (2.92 million ounces) gold and 31.9 g/t (84 million oz silver), or 4 million oz gold-equivalent; plus 12.4 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.48 g/t (590,000 oz) gold and 20.9 g/t (8.3 million oz) silver, or 727,000 oz gold-equivalent, on the adjacent Lawyer and Ranch properties.
Thesis completed a 9,510-meter drill program this year focused primarily on collecting information for a prefeasibility study slated to get underway after the first of the year. The program included 5,400 meters of geotechnical, water monitoring, resource expansion, and exploration drilling on the Ranch property.
The latest assays are from three exploration holes drilled at Ring Zone, a new, blind discovery that lies about 750 meters south of the Thesis Structural Corridor, which hosts most of the resource at Ranch, and 750 meters east of BV, a smaller deposit on the property.
Highlights from the Ring Zone discovery drilling include:
• 13.13 meters averaging 1.21 g/t gold from a depth of 28.5 meters in hole 24RNGDD001, including three meters averaging 2.22 g/t gold.
• One meter averaging 11.32 g/t gold from a depth of 55.2 meters in hole 24RNGDD002.
Ring is one out of 11 exploration targets that have been identified near the already outlined gold-silver deposits at Ranch.
• 1.85 meters averaging 3.49 g/t gold from a depth of 27.2 meters in hole 24RNGDD003.
"With robust PEA results from our 4.7 Moz deposit, these latest results confirm significant exploration upside within the main resource area, which also remains open for expansion," said Thesis Gold President and CEO Ewan Webster. "This discovery underscores our technical team's ability to leverage data to target near-surface, high-grade zones and opens the door to future discoveries across this expansive land package."
Thesis plans to follow up on the Ring Zone discovery with additional drilling in 2025.
In addition to continued resource expansion and exploration drilling, the company plans to complete the prefeasibility study and initiate the permitting process for developing a mine at Ranch-Lawyers next year.
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)