Harte Gold received a phase one commercial permit from the province, giving them the green light to mine an additional 30,000 tonnes at its Sugar Zone gold deposit.
In a Jan. 24 news release, the Toronto junior miner laid out its 2017 plans to do more underground and surface work on its advanced exploration property northeast of White River.
The company is preparing to start full-scale commercial operations by the first quarter of 2018. Toronto engineering consultants Halyard Inc., have been hired to design and build a 525-tonne per day processing mill, which will be ready early in 2018.
The Sugar Zone Property is located 25 kilometres off the Trans-Canada Highway and 60 kilometres east of the Hemlo gold camp on Lake Superior’s north shore.
As infrastructure work proceeds, drilling activity will also pick up.
Foraco International SA is contracted to do a minimum 10,000-metre drill program.
Three drill rigs will be deployed over the next month to bring the number of drills on the property to five by March.
The company said drilling on both the Sugar Zone and its newly discovered Middle Zone continues to show promise along strike and at depth.
In late February, the company expects to start some high definition airborne magnetometer, electromagnetic and VTEM (Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic) to cover their entire 30,000-hectare land package as part of a large-scale regional exploration program to generate exploration targets.
At last count, the property holds an indicated resource of 1,117,000 tonnes grading 8.41 grams/tonne (g/t) of gold for 302,000 ounces of contained gold, and an inferred resource of 417,000 tonnes grading 7.13 g/t for 95,000 ounces.
“With the issuance of the Phase 1 Commercial Permit, Harte Gold will accelerate activities at the Sugar Zone Mine and with a large scale regional exploration program, which we expect will generate and test many new exploration targets on Harte Gold’s district-scale land package”, said Harte Gold president-CEO Stephen Roman in a statement.
“With our strong balance sheet and cash flow from the Bulk Sample, we expect 2017 to be a very exciting year for Harte Gold.”
The company said has started hiring and is engaged in discussions with Pic Mobert First Nation to reach an impact benefit agreement by the middle of the year.
