Pine Cove

Anaconda Mining’s Pine Cove mine is located on the Baie Verte Peninsula in north-central Newfoundland and characteristic of many mines in the province; it is well serviced by the Trans-Canada Highway, provincial highways and power from Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

With about 40 people on site and several quarters of increasing production, Anaconda plans to produce nearly 16,000 ounces of gold this year from its existing Pine Cove open pit and through continuing exploration of its 785 hectare land package, it will focus on discovering new deposits in the immediate area next to the mine.

Mineralization consists of shear hosted gold associated with pyrite, as well as visible gold with minor base-metal sulphides in quartz veins. It’s the geometry of the mineralization that makes Pine Cove such a favourable site for an open-pit mine.

The existing pit operation excavates between 6,000 and 7,000 tpd of material (waste and ore) with a life-of-mine strip ratio of 4.3 : 1 and ore grade of 2.07 gpt. The on-site mill is crush, ball mill and flotation circuit that produces a gold-pyrite concentrate, cyanide leach, filtration and Merrill Crowe gold recovery circuit with an average throughput of 900 to 1,000 tpd and overall recovery of 83%.

With production well established and its mill performing as planned, Anaconda is looking to increase its exploration efforts on its large prospective land package.

The Baie Verte Peninsula hosts more than 125 documented gold showings and deposits with excellent potential to delineate and process additional gold resources. Anaconda Mining plans to be a leader when it comes to finding and producing gold in Newfoundland.