GOLD: Richmont plans $48.3M capex for Island Gold mine

ONTARIO – This is going to be a transformational one for the Island Gold mine near Wawa, if Richmont Mines president and CEO Renaud Adams has his way. He expects to see the mine life extended, the resource reach more than a million ounces, production grow, and the mine to generate superior free cash flows.

Toward that end, the company has set it 2015 capital budget at $56.3 million, of which $48.3 million will be spent on development and operation of the Island Gold mine. Work will include extending the main access ramp to a minimum depth of 750 metres and the secondary eastern ramp to at least 570 metres. The exploration drilling program calls for 41,000 metres to potentially extend the existing resource to the east and 59,000 metres of definition and delineation drilling to upgrade the inferred resource between 500 and 1,000 metres. That block would then be mined in 2016.

The 2015 forecast production from Island Gold is targeted between 78,000 and 88,000 oz at a cash cost of between $935 and $1,035 per oz.

Details of Richmont's plans for Island Gold, as well as its properties in Quebec, may be found in the news release dated Jan. 15, 2015, and posted at Richmont-Mines.com.