Victoria Gold Corp has declared commercial production at the Eagle Gold Mine in Canada’s Yukon on July 1, 2020. All facilities required at this stage of the mine life are complete. “Mining, crushing, processing and maintenance operations are performing at a high level. The company’s first reporting period under commercial production will be the 3rd quarter ended September 30, 2020.” It is the largest gold mine in Yukon’s history.
The mine is a heap leach operation (three-stage crushing plant, in-valley heap leach and carbon-in-leach adsorption-desorption gold recovery plant) and will have an average annual production of 210,000 oz/y at an AISC cost of <$800/oz. The open pit has a 1:1 strip ratio and the heap peach is operating at 76% recovery. In Q1 2020, 946,479 t of ore were mined and 1,565,964 t of waste with 887,700 of ore stacked with a 0.83 g/t grade. Open pit mining will focus on the various Eagle pit phases with the smaller Olive pit coming into production in 2028. Open pit mining and loading of the heap leach facilities will be completed in Q2 of 2031. The constructed primary heap leach pad (HLP) will accommodate up to 90 M t of ore and is located approximately 1.2 km north of the Eagle Zone orebody, in the Ann Gulch valley.
Ore above 0.30 g/t from the Eagle pit is sent to a three-stage crushing plant. The crushing circuit consists of one 375 kW primary gyratory crusher, one 932 kW secondary cone crusher and three, parallel 932 kW tertiary cone crushers. Crushing plant feed material, with a maximum top size of 1,000 mm, is trucked from the open pits and dumped directly into the primary gyratory crusher at a throughput of approximately 29,500 t/d. The primary crusher will operate 365 days a year, while the secondary and tertiary crushers will only operate 275 days when ore is stacked on the HLPs. From Q2 through Q4 of each year, stockpiled crushed ore is reclaimed via a loader/hopper/conveyor system to the secondary crusher. Crushed ore reclaiming is done at 470 t/h, and combined with the primary crusher discharge, at a total rate of 39,200 t/d, to the secondary and tertiary crushing circuits. The tertiary product, screen undersize at P80 of 6.5 mm, feeds a series of conveyors and grasshopper conveyors to a radial stacker on the HLP. Lime is added to the tertiary screen discharge conveyor for pH control.
ROM ore (less than 0.30 g/t but above the cut-off grade of 0.15 g/t) is sent directly from the Eagle pit to the primary HLP during the stacking months, and to the ore stockpile during the stockpiling months (January to March). The ROM ore is reclaimed from the stockpile using a loader and trucks and taken to the primary HLP. The ROM ore will be segregated from the crushed ore but will be placed within the overall primary HLP.
The mine operates a Caterpillar fleet of 22 m3 6040 hydraulic shovels and 140 t 785 trucks with 12 m3 front-end loaders. This fleet is supported by drills, graders, and track and dozers. Benches are mined at a height of 10 m in both ore and waste with an overall 20 m effective bench height based on a double-bench final wall configuration.
“Site activities continue to progress well and all facilities and operations are now at or approaching design capacity. This consistent production combined with materially positive operating cash flow has allowed Victoria management to declare commercial production as of July 1, 2020.”, said John McConnell, President & CEO. “Achievement of commercial production is a meaningful and memorable accomplishment that the entire team is proud to be part of. Special thanks goes to so many contributors, including the local communities and the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun who have helped us make Eagle a reality.”
The company says it continues to follow strict COVID-19 protocols at the Eagle Mine site as well as across the company’s work locations. Yukon is currently in Phase 2 of lifting COVID-19 restrictions. Personnel from Yukon and British Columbia are no longer required to self-isolate prior to coming to site, however, all workers from outside the Canadian territories and BC will self-isolate in Whitehorse for 14 days prior to traveling to site. The Eagle Mine site continues to operate on a 4 week in/4 week out schedule rather than the normal pre-COVID-19 2 week in/2 week out schedule.
Victoria Gold’s 100%-owned Dublin Gulch gold property is situated in central Yukon Territory, Canada, approximately 375 km north of the capital city of Whitehorse, and approximately 85 km from the town of Mayo. The property is accessible by road year round, and is located within Yukon Energy’s electrical grid. It covers an area of approximately 555 square kilometres, and is the site of the company’s Eagle and Olive Gold Deposits. The Eagle Gold Mine is Yukon’s newest operating gold mine. The mine is six hours by road to Whitehorse and eight hours by road to Port of Skagway, Alaska in the US.