Shane Williams, President and CEO of West Red Lake Gold Mines (TSX.V:WRLG – OTCQB:WRLGF), joins me to review some its ongoing worksite activities as the Company advances towards its goal of a targeted mining restart in 2025, at its 100% owned Madsen Mine located in the Red Lake Gold District of Northwestern Ontario, Canada. We start off discussing the news released to the marketplace September 4th, where the Company provided updates on a number of different initiatives geared towards further derisking the Project, and towards building operational readiness.
Tailing Storage Facility Dam Lift
A tailings dam lift project got underway in early August. Increasing the dam height by 4 metres will create enough additional tailings capacity for 10 years of operation, assuming a milling rate of 800 tonnes per day.
Connection Drift
The Connection Drift is a 1,200-metre haulage way being driven to connect the East and West ramps of the underground mine at Madsen. These ramps, with independent portals, were not previously connected, resulting in substantial inefficiencies in moving mined material to the mill.
Dewatering To Access Lower Parts Of The Mine
We discussed that there is opportunity to extend the limits of known mineralization at the Madsen mine to depth. The neighbouring mines operated by Evolution Mining currently mine down to 3000 metres; by contrast, resources at the Madsen Mine have been defined down to only 1200 metres. Multiple historic drill holes that returned notable mineralization from downplunge of the defined resource underscore this potential. And parts of the defined resource, including the 8 Zone that carries the highest grades of the resource areas at Madsen, are below the current water level. Water dropped below the 13 level of the mine in early July. Mining areas in the first few years of the restart plan are all above the 12 level.
Primary Crusher
The Company is pleased to report a procurement deal with Powerscreen of Canada, a dealer for Terex Corporation, for the purchase of a primary crusher. Delivery is expected in October. The electric primary jaw crusher plant (model CRJ3042) reduces rock from 19.6-inch feed size to 4-inch or less. The crusher can process 145 tonnes of rock per hour. The mill at the Madsen Mine has a nameplate capacity of 800 tonnes per day.
Work Force Accommodations and Mine Site Facilities
West Red Lake Gold has placed a purchase order for mine site accommodations and a Mine Dry facility for the Madsen Mine. The Company understands the commitments of remote work and wants to ensure that workforce accommodations are of top quality and provide a home away from home for its employees. West Red Lake has partnered with Horizon North to provide 114-person accommodations and mine dry facilities for the Madsen mine site.
Test Mining and Bulk Sample Program
One further element of derisking was announced in news on Sept. 19th, where a test mining and bulk sample program is now underway at the Madsen Mine, adding a key derisking component to the efforts being made to prepare the mine for a targeted restart in 2025. Shane highlights how this process will provide data and experience that are invaluable in mining, and help to reduce dilution and increase operational efficiencies.
We also reviewed again that the previous operator had ongoing reconciliation issues between the mined ore and the milled ore at the Madsen Mine made, but further review has shown they had made significant mistakes building the mine and mill, which are fixable. During a mine clean-up process earlier this year, it really helped their team understand the technical flow better and also addresses that they’ll be able to solve many of the reconciliation issues between mined and milled ore upon a development and mine restart scenario. The next big step in this understanding and economics around the project will be in the Pre-Feasibility Study, due out by the end of this year.
If you have any follow up questions for the team over at West Red Lake Gold please email me at Shad@kereport.com.
- In full disclosure, Shad is a shareholder of West Red Lake Gold Mines at the time of this recording.
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Click here to visit the West Red Lake Gold website and read over the recent news we discussed.
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