Canadian miner Ascot Resources has started ore processing at the Premier gold project (PGP) in British Columbia, marking a key milestone in commissioning the new mine.
Rock was introduced into the grinding circuit of the mill on March 31, and the first ore was introduced into the mill on April 5.
“Most project construction activities are substantially completed, and commissioning activities are ongoing throughout the processing plant with the aim of pouring first gold this month,” reported president and CEO Derek White.
As is customary for processing plant startups, waste rock was initially introduced into the grinding circuit in order to pad the semi-autogenous grinding and ball mill liners with barren material. Once that commissioning step was completed, the grinding system was re-torqued and gold-bearing ore was introduced into the mill.
Commissioning activities are currently focused on the remaining components of the processing plant – namely the gravity concentration and intensive leaching circuit, the carbon regeneration circuit, the elution circuit, cyanide destruction, and the gold room.
The tailings storage facility, new water treatment plant, tailings thickener and pipeline systems are ready for operations.
The PGP is centred on four underground mining operations feeding a centralised 2 500 t/d processing facility, located at PGP. The four mining operations known as Silver Coin, Big Missouri, Premier and Red Mountain - located about 23 km from the mill - will be sequenced over an eight-year period to produce 1.1-million ounces of gold and 3-million ounces of silver.