Springpole Deposit hosts potential 24 million oz of silver and 5 million oz of gold By Kevin Vincent
With a $28.7 million raise in late August and what one veteran mining observer described as “the best quality gold development assets under one company’s roof”, First Mining Gold is poised to make big news in 2021. A Pre-Feasibility Study is underway on the company’s Springpole Project, 110 km northeast of Red Lake. The study should be finished in early 2021 and permitting is on-going with submission of the Environmental Impact Statement targeted for 2021 as well. First Mining believes Springpole is one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in Canada, currently hosting a mineral resource base of 4.67 million ounces of gold in the Indicated category and 0.23 million ounces of gold in the Inferred category. Like many companies, First Mining Gold had to pause during the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic as they demobilized operations at Springpole and the Goldlund projects from late March to late May, during which time they had no reported cases of the deadly virus. The company has been moving
ahead following the release of an impressive Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) that it finalized in 2019.
PEA Highlights: · Large open-pit-able resources: · Indicated Resource: 139.1 Mt at 1.04 g/t Au, 5.4 g/t Ag, containing 4,670,000 ounces of gold and 24,190,000 ounces of silver · Inferred Resource: 11.4 Mt at 0.63 g/t Au, 3.1 g/t Ag, containing 230,000 ounces of gold and 1,120,000 ounces of silver · Significant infrastructure in-place or proximal to project: 72-man camp onsite, winter road access, logging road within 10 km, and power lines nearby · Project is located in a pro-mining jurisdiction within Treaty Nine and Treaty Three First Nations Agreement lands · In November of 2015, First Mining acquired Gold Canyon Resources Inc., which wholly owned the Springpole Gold Project. First Mining believes Springpole is one of Canada’s largest undeveloped gold projects, covering a land position of nearly 42,000 hectares.
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The 2019 Springpole Gold Project PEA evaluated recovery of gold and silver from a potential 36,000 tonne-per-day open pit operation, with a process plant that includes crushing, grinding and flotation, with fine grinding of the flotation concentrate and agitated leaching of both the flotation concentrate and the flotation tails followed by a carbon-in -pulp recovery process to produce doré bullion. The company says updated metallurgical test work has demonstrated the potential for significantly improved gold and silver recoveries was included along with updated operating and capital cost estimates. The mineral resource calculations provided in the 2019 Springpole Gold Project PEA were not impacted and remain the same as were stated in the 2017 Springpole Gold Project PEA. Capital costs for the processing facility were estimated to be USD$519 million. In June 2020, First Mining struck a deal with First Majestic Silver Corp. where First majestic agreed to buy half the company’s silver production – the deal was worth US$22 million. In addition to Springpole, in early September, First Mining reported that Auteco Minerals Ltd., First Mining’s partner on its Pickle Crow Gold Project in northwestern Ontario, increased its current drill program at Pickle Crow from 10,000 metres to 45,000m. As part of its earn-in agreement with First Mining, Auteco has actively been exploring the Pickle Crow deposit, with one diamond drill rig in operation since May 2020 and a second drill rig mobilized to site in July. To expedite potential resource growth and test multiple step-out targets, a third rig is scheduled to be mobilized in late September 2020. Based on initial exploration results and observations to date, Auteco’s drill program has been expanded Cont’d on pg. 54
