TSX-V-listed Abcourt Mines on Tuesday started processing the first tonnes from the Pershing-Manitou deposit at the Sleeping Giant mill, having begun work in September to restart the operation.
Abcourt is processing a 5 000 t sample of material from the deposit in a campaign that will be supervised by an independent firm specialising in metallurgy to reconcile the milled grades with the grades of the extracted mineral resources.
The company plans to initially process between 600 t and 800 t a week, with weekly tonnes gradually increasing.
Abcourt then plans to process 400 t of ore remaining in the surface silo of the Elder mine in order to clean and evacuate the potentially high-grade material from the Pershing-Manitou deposit out of the grinding circuit
Thereafter, Abcourt will begin processing material coming directly from the Sleeping Giant mine.
The company said that its objective in the coming months is to carry out definition and exploration drilling to prepare an updated mineral resources estimate, and subsequently, complete an economic prefeasibility study (PFS).
“While we advance preparations for the PFS, Abcourt will feed the mill with mineralised material from the four upper levels of the underground mine.”
In June, Abcourt announced a positive preliminary economic assessment for the Sleeping Giant project. The study is based on Sleeping Giant producing 30 100 oz/y over 5.8 years.