Prepping Old Mine For Bright Future

Garson Gold Corp. is proving up the resource estimate of its wholly owned New Brittania Mine (NBM) in northern Manitoba in preparation for taking the mine back into production.

“NBM is an old mine with modern infrastructure that needs a sufficient resource to be re-developed economically,” says Garson CEO David Tafel, “but the reactivation of the mine can come together quickly.”

Tafel says all the permits are in place and because NBM was producing gold until late 2005, a quick return to production is possible.

“The mill and related equipment and facilities remain in operating condition,” said Tafel.

Garson Gold is completing $2 million in financing now which it will use to update its resource estimates and naturally, like most mining companies, it’s still looking for more money.

The New Britannia Mine project

NBM and its 2,150-t/d mill and tailings facility are Garson Gold’s primary asset. The property, located at Snow Lake, is about 700 km north of Winnipeg and consists of almost 5,000 ha of mineral claims and leases containing many known gold showings and what NBM says is “a very high potential for new discoveries.” Since acquiring NBM in 2006, Garson has done more than 45,000 m of drilling, which it conducts year-round.

Garson’s strategy to get NBM back into production has basic three parts: drill in deposits that have near-term potential; analyze geological data to decide where to drill in places with known mineralization and potential; and search for new targets in the area.

Tafel says the first and main focus of Garson’s exploration in the NBM area is the surveyed mineral lease ML-323’s No. 3 Zone, a satellite deposit which is 1.5 km from the main mine and which remains open for expansion at depth. Before Garson started drilling, the zone had an inferred resource of 50,000 ounces of gold.

In April 2009, Garson released the results of a preliminary assessment of the economics of mining the No. 3 Zone and re-activation of the mill. The PA, which was completed by Micon International Limited in compliance with NI-43-101, was based on the mining and processing of gold from the No. 3 Zone only.

No. 3 Zone has an indicated resource of 434,000 tons at an average grade of 0.20 oz/t; which is approximately 85,000 ounces. It also contains an inferred resource of 634,000 tons at an average grade of 0.18 oz/t, which is approximately 117,000 ounces.

The company’s mining plan projects annual production of approximately 830,000 tons at an average grade 0.179 oz/t, which includes mining dilution and losses of approximately 149,000 ounces. The plan also calls for a mining rate of 1,000 t/d (750 tons mill feed and 250 tons waste) for a mine life of approximately three years and a total project life of approximately 3.8 years.

Finally, the plan forecasts a milling rate of 1,300 t/d on a 4 day per week basis at an estimated recovery of 92 per cent, which is approximately 137,400 ounces.

The updated resource of the No. 3 satellite zone is just a portion of the total mineral resource inventory on the NBM property. The entire property resource inventory contains 449,000 ounces of gold in the measured and indicated categories (2.6 million tonnes at 5.37 g/tonne) and 317,000 ounces of gold in the inferred category (1.9 million tonnes at 5.22 g/t).

Tafel says several other zones on the property are at an advanced stage of assessment and exploration and have the potential to contribute to the mining plan and extend the mine life and increase mill throughput. The company is engaged in a program of diamond drilling and resource evaluation, which includes the exploration of a prospective north-northwest trending corridor that encompasses the New Britannia Main Mine, the Boundary Zone, and the No. 3 Zone.

Tafel says the drilling results to date have confirmed the potential for new discoveries and resource expansion within this prospective corridor and elsewhere on the property.

“We’ve drilled and found two zones,” Tafel said. “There’s an upper one, which could become an open pit mine and a lower zone that is identical to Zone 3.”

Tafel says there are at least a dozen zones on the NBM property.