Name of the Project
Sleeping Giant gold project.
Location
Greenstone belt of Abitibi, 80 km north of the town of Amos, in Quebec, Canada.
Project Owner/s
Abcourt Mines.
Project Description
The project is an underground mine that was operated until 2014.
A recently completed preliminary economic assessment (PEA) envisages a rapid startup of operations with minimal initial investment.
The project involves the extraction of 720 000 t of ore, including new stopes that can be accessed almost exclusively from existing levels.
Production will be split between levels N-145 and N-1110, and will require rehabilitation of the drifts, escapeway, shaft service compartment and existing infrastructure.
The stopes will be mined using longhole, shrinkage and room-and-pillar methods, with a tonnage distribution of 27%, 30% and 43% respectively. Ore will be processed at Sleeping Giant’s concentrator plant, which has a capacity of between 700 t/d and 750 t/d.
Sleeping Giant has strong potential for mineral resource expansion, based on more than 800 mineralised structures remaining open at depth, down plunge and to the east. Future modelling could offer an increase in the potential of the project. Using nearly 50% of its capacity, the current ore-processing plant has excess capacity that could offer the opportunity to accept material from deposits surrounding the project.
Further, the contribution of other deposits could positively influence the economics of the PEA.
Potential Job Creation
Not stated.
Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has an estimated after-tax net present value, at a 5% discount rate, of C$54.4-million and an internal rate of return of 33.3%, with a payback of 2.1 years.
Capital Expenditure
Initial capital expenditure is estimated at C$42-million.
Planned Start/End Date
Not stated.
Latest Developments
Abcourt Mines started work in September to restart the operation, and the first tonnes from the Pershing-Manitou deposit at the Sleeping Giant mill were processed.
The company 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 to clean and evacuate the potentially high-grade material from the Pershing-Manitou deposit out of the grinding circuit.
Thereafter, Abcourt will start processing material coming directly from the Sleeping Giant mine.
The company has said that its objective in the coming months is to conduct definition and exploration drilling to prepare an updated mineral resources estimate, and subsequently, complete an economic prefeasibility study (PFS).
Abcourt has said that while it advances preparations for the PFS, it will feed the mill with mineralised material from the four upper levels of the underground mine.
In June 2023, Abcourt announced a positive PEA for the Sleeping Giant project. The study is based on Sleeping Giant producing 30 100 oz/y over 5.8 years.
Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
None stated.
Contact Details for Project Information
Abcourt Mines, tel +1 819 768 2857 or email info@abcourt.com.