When Vault Minerals resumes mining at its idled Sugar Zone property in the White River-area in late 2027, there will be more newly discovered, higher grade gold in the ground that could grow the scale of the underground operation.
The Australian gold company delivered a recent update on its mothballed Sugar Zone mine that shows a 20 per cent increase in gold reserves after a year spent drilling off a new deposit that’s adjacent to the main mining area.
Gold reserves now stand at 389,000 ounces based on the results from 101 drill holes inside an 18,219-metre program. The drill work was focused on a mineralized area dubbed Sugar South, 150 metres south of its Sugar Zone Main deposit.
Sugar Zone is Vault’s only mine asset outside of Australia. The underground mine is 30 kilometres north of White River and the Trans-Canada Highway, and roughly halfway between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay. It began operations under Harte Gold ownership in November 2018.
A predecessor company to Vault, Silver Lake Resources, bought the former Harte operation out of a CCAA (Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act) sale in 2022 and ran it for more than a year before shutting down operations in August 2023. Silver Lake wanted to explore to get a better understanding of the geological structure of the gold property whiling making substantial investments to make the mine more efficient.
Silver Lake later merged with another Australian gold company, Red 5, last year to form Vault Minerals.
In a Sept. 15 update, Vault said Sugar South extends over a strike length of 380 metres with more gold likely to be discovered deeper down.
The company sees a real growth opportunity to open a third mining front, which can start from surface since there’s been some shallow, high-grade drill hits that are some of best ever recorded on the property.
The grades look to be 23 per cent higher than the grades at its two other Sugar Main and Middle Zone deposits.
Adding Sugar South to the mine plan is a “compelling, low-capital” opportunity, Vault said in the document, as existing underground development and infrastructure can simply be extended as part of the mine’s restart. That work alone would be a moneymaker for Vault as underground development is expected to generate 13,000 ounces of gold.
Vault wants to crank up mining operations at Sugar Zone by November 2027. But to do that, a new mine tailings dam must be constructed.
The trigger that sets the mine restart plan in motion is the Ontario government providing regulatory approval to begin the construction of the tailings facility. Getting that approval touches off a change of events that sees expanded mine development beginning next July and gold production resuming in November 2027. The company wants construction of the new tailings dam to be finished by October 2027.
In the update, Vault did not specify when it expects to receive that approval in order to stay on that schedule. An email to the Perth-headquartered company produced no response.
