Name: New Afton mine.

Location: The New Afton mine is located about 350 km north-east of Vancouver, in the south-central interior of British Columbia, Canada.

Controlling Company: New Gold.

Brief History: The New Afton mine occupies the site of the historic Afton mine, which previously belonged to Teck Resources. The mine achieved production start-up in June 2012, and ramped up to a design capacity of 11 000 t/d in September of that year, ahead of schedule.

Brief Description: The New Afton mine includes openpit and underground workings, historic support facilities, a new concentrator and a recently constructed tailings facility.

Mining Method: Underground block cave.

Products: Copper, gold and silver.

Major Infrastructure and Equipment: The New Afton mill is designed to process 11 000 t/d, or four-million tonnes a year of ore, at full capacity, recovering copper, gold and silver.

The mill processes a blend of primary, transition and supergene ores using conventional crushing, grinding, and concentration processes. Mineral separation is achieved through gravity concentration and differential flotation. A regrinding stage is expected to be included in the flotation circuit.

Geology/Mineralisation: The Afton deposits are copper/gold silica-saturated alkalic porphyry systems situated within the Iron Mask batholith complex. The Iron Mask complex is part of the Paleozoic island-arc assemblage, known as the Quesnel Terrane. Regional-scale fault zones are believed to be the principal control to intrusion of the batholithic rocks and the mineralisation processes in the New Afton area.

The hypogene mineralisation at the mine is dominated by fine-grained disseminated chalcopyrite. In weathered portions of the deposit, the chalcopyrite has been altered to bornite and chalcocite and, in the most intensely oxidised areas, native copper. Native gold is rare. Gold and silver reportedly occur as electrum grains within the chalcopyrite and bornite. The bulk of the deposit occupies a large tabular mass – 900 m long and about 100 m wide, spanning a vertical distance of about 350 m. The zone dips vertically to steeply south-south-east. Two subsidiary satellite bodies occur to the north-east of the Main Zone.

Faulting subsequent to the mineralising event has reshuffled portions of the deposit in a manner not fully understood, resulting in truncation and displacement of the mineralised zone along a hanging wall fault. The ground conditions in the vicinity of the fault are poor, hampering efforts to drill through it. As a result, drill information on the hanging wall side of the fault is limited.

Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at December 31, 2012, were 52.5-million tonnes grading 0.65 g/t gold, 2.3 g/t silver and 0.93% copper.

Resources: Total measured and indicated resources as at December 31, 2012, were 82.7-million tonnes, grading 0.74 g/t gold, 2.6 g/t silver and 1% copper. Inferred resources were 28.4-million tonnes, grading 0.57 g/t gold, 1.8 g/t silver and 0.7% copper.

Prospects: New Afton was targeting an increase in throughput to an average 12 000 t/d, or a 9% increase on the design rate, by the end of 2013. Since certain elements of the operation, including the underground gyratory crusher and mill, have significant excess capacity, New Gold will consider opportunities to move to an even higher rate in 2014 and beyond.

Contact Person: Media and communications manager Julie Taylor.

Contact Details:
New Gold,
tel +1 416 324 6015,
fax +1 416 324 9494,
email julie.taylor@newgold.com, and
website http://www.newgold.com.