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Gowest Gold seeks funding for drive underground

Historically high gold prices made it easier to find new gold deposits, but last year’s 25 per cent drop in the precious metal’s value makes it harder to get it out of the ground. Gowest Gold Ltd.
Gowest
Gowest Gold geologist Angela Falcon surveying a drill hole at Bradshaw deposit, 42 kilometres northeast of Timmins.

Historically high gold prices made it easier to find new gold deposits, but last year’s 25 per cent drop in the precious metal’s value makes it harder to get it out of the ground.

Gowest Gold Ltd. is tackling that challenge with innovation as it plans to mine its Bradshaw gold deposit, 42 kilometres northeast of Timmins.

“Our model, at least in the early years, is contract mining, contract crushing, contract grinding, contract processing,” said Gowest president Greg Romain.

The company intends to use rock sorting technology to improve the grade of ore before it is shipped for milling. It’s also discussing the possibility of contracting hydro-electric power and underground mining equipment.

“It’s tough out there and everybody has to think outside the box if they want to get projects off the ground,” said Romain. “Otherwise, if projects don’t get off the ground, nobody has any work.”

Gowest is working to raise money for an advanced exploration program that would drive an underground ramp on its property and extract a 30,000-tonne bulk sample. “We are talking to a couple of groups and there’s a very strong interest. We’re working our way through with them right now,” Romain said. “We are looking for $25 million Canadian and we want to have that all lined up before we start.”

Previously president of the Norcast iron and steel foundry, which sold mill liners and grinding media around the world, Romain, a Timmins native, worked for seven summers at the Kidd Creek Metallurgical Site while in high school and university. “I know enough to be dangerous,” he laughs. His father-in-law, Ron Bradshaw, who discovered the gold deposit, asked him to get involved with the project.

Three different mining companies surveyed the property in the 1960s and limited diamond drilling probed the geology for nearly 20 years. Gowest began site exploration in 1983, bringing to 95 the number of historical drill holes, totalling 20,000 metres. Since 2010, Gowest has diamond drilled another 78,000 metres of ground with 273 holes.

Exploration has identified gold mineralization in five steeply dipping, sub-parallel zones to a vertical depth of more than 1,000 metres along a 1.3-kilometre strike length. The deposit remains open along strike and at depth. Indicated resources are estimated at 2,121,866 tonnes grading 6.19 grams gold per tonne for 422,000 ounces of gold. Inferred resources are 3,629,097 tonnes grading 6.47 g/t for 755,000 ounces. Probable mineral reserves, based on a 2015 pre-feasibility study by Stantec, are pegged at 1.8 million tonnes grading 4.82 g/t for 277,000 ounces of gold.

The deposit’s gold ore, associated with arsenopyrite, will be crushed and then sorted with Tomra Sorting equipment, a technology employing the same kind of X-ray technology used in security scanning at airports, Romain explained. “The X-ray picks off a signal. Because it’s arsenopyrite, it gives off a very good signal,” he said. Signals trigger high-pressure air jets at the end of conveyor that blow off the ore or the waste, depending on how the machine is set up. “It’s a major advantage,” Romain said. “It’s a game changer in terms of the milling. You lower your milling costs significantly and it allows the mining operators to think a little differently when you mine the deposit.” Even some of the mixed waste material, grading about 1.5 grams per tonne excavated during mine development can be sorted for profit. “You have to bring it to surface anyway, but then you can sort it and get it up to 3 or 4 grams and still send it to the mill and make money off of it.”

The refractory ore, which requires treatment before it’s amenable to conventional cyanide leaching, will be custom milled to create a high-grade concentrate of three or more ounces of gold per tonne. It will then be trucked for treatment with either pressure oxidation or with Biomin’s BioX bio-leaching technology, which uses a bacterial process to extract gold. Each system will be tested with Gowest’s bulk sample, Romain said. “We’ll run feed through both the pressure oxidization and some feed through the Biomin process and weigh out which one makes the most sense in the long run. We’ve talked to a few groups already that are interested in the concentrate and running it.”

Even though gold plunged from US$1,300 per ounce a year ago to less than $1,100 this year, Romain insists that mining the Bradshaw deposit remains practical, especially given the rate of exchange for Canadian and U.S. dollars. “It’s still a very strong project,” he said. “Our costs are predominantly in Canadian dollars, so the project is very viable. The exchange rate plays a big part in that.”

He expects to start underground work with 50 to 60 people by mid-2016. His team of mining professionals, working more or less on a consulting basis, is prepared to do more work on a full-time basis. “We’re pretty lean,” he said. “I come from the manufacturing side where cash is king and we treat nickels like manhole covers, so we’re going to be frugal in how we approach it. That’s how we’re going to do it and be successful.”