The provincial environmental assessment (EA) of an open-pit mine development near Geraldton has been approved.
Premier Gold Mines and Centerra Gold, the 50-50 owners and developers of the Hardrock Project announced that the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks had signed off on their environmental technical report.
The project’s federal EA was approved by Ottawa on Dec.13.
The Hardrock project is one of four deposits on a 28,550-hectare land package known as the Greenstone Gold Property, is just south of the town and 275 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
Hardrock contains an estimated 4.2 million ounces of gold in the ground with a grade of 1.02 grams per tonne.
A 14.5-year mine life is projected. The average annual production will be 300,000 ounces.
The plan for 2019 is to spend $54 million on advance permitting, including for construction, detailed engineering, conduct 18,000 metres of infill drilling, release an updated reserve and resource estimate, and generally shore up the project’s overall economics.
The companies expect to have all permit approvals required to start major construction in place by the middle of 2020 for the beginning of a two-year build.
When finished, the mine and processing mill will employ 450.
The development will result in the diversion of Highway 11 around the pit and diverting some water bodies south of the deposit.
The area was mined between 1930 and 1970, and over that span produced more than 4.0 million ounces of gold from multiple underground mines.
Toronto’s Centerra Gold has gold mines in British Columbia, Kyrgyzstan in central Asia, and a new mine coming online in Turkey. Thunder Bay’s Premier Gold owns mines in Mexico and Nevada with exploration properties in Red Lake and Nevada.
