Rubicon Minerals is running 20,000 tonnes of material from its testing mine program through the processing mill at its Phoenix Gold project in Red Lake.
The Toronto mine developer is mining on two stopes, and is blasting out a third stope, as part of a 25,000 to 30,000-tonne bulk sampling program of its F2 Gold Deposit.
The assay results from this trial mining will be folded into a new mineral estimate to be released later this year.
Construction of the controversial mine project was halted in late 2015 after a “challenging” geological environment at the site forced Rubicon to lay off miners and contractors. The senior management was replaced and a new team brought to tabulate a more accurate resource calculation
The company reports it’s halfway through a 20,000-metre drilling program that’s a combination of infill and step-out.
Drill crews are preparing an underground exploration drift at the 610-metre level to put a second drill into action by the middle this month. It will enable them to drill off the lower portion of the deposit.
"With the commencement of the bulk sample processing, we enter an important step towards potentially improving the confidence of, and evaluating, the 2018 Mineral Resource Estimate at the Phoenix Gold Project,” said Rubicon president George Ogilvie in a news release.
“We are on schedule to provide the full results of the bulk sample program and its reconciliation to the block model in the fourth quarter of 2018. We plan to update the markets on the progress of our bulk sample processing and exploration activities in due course."
During the second quarter, the company spent $5.5 million in mine development, drilling, maintenance and on consultants. Rubicon anticipates exploration expenditures to increase in the third quarter, primarily due to the bulk sampling and processing activities.
