Atlantic Gold Corp currently holds four gold development projects in Nova Scotia, Canada: the Moose River Consolidated project (MRC project) comprising the Touquoy and the Beaver Dam gold deposits, the Cochrane Hill gold deposit, and the Fifteen Mile Stream deposit, as highlighted in the map.
The Touquoy gold project is the most advanced with all major permits in place. Beaver Dam is now in the permitting phase following the release of the results of a Feasibility study, the Cochrane Hill project is now at the feasibility stage following the publishing of a PEA in October 2014, while the Fifteen Mile Stream project is at an earlier stage of development, with a Mineral Resource estimate in place.
The Touquoy gold project is under construction with all major environmental permitting in place including Environmental Assessment and Industrial Approval and granted Mineral Lease.
According to the feasibility study, mining is based on conventional open pit methods suited for the project location and local site requirements. The mining fleet will include diesel powered DTH drills with 110 mm bit size for production drilling, diesel powered RC (reverse circulation) drills for bench scale exploration drilling, 4.5m3 bucket size diesel hydraulic excavators and 7 m3 bucket sized wheel loaders for production loading, and 64 t payload rigid frame haul trucks for production loading, plus ancillary and service equipment to support the mining operations.
Mine operations are anticipated to begin at Touquoy, and move to Beaver Dam once the Touquoy pit reserves are exhausted in year 5. At Touquoy, ore is hauled to a crusher 700 m north of the pit, which feeds the process plant; and waste rock is deposited into a waste rock storage facility (WRSF) 1,000 m east of the pit, or is used as rock fill in construction of the tailings facility 800 m east of the pit. At Beaver Dam, reserve ore is hauled to a crusher 600 m south of the pit, and then crushed ore is hauled by on-highway haulers from Beaver Dam to the process plant at Touquoy operations; and waste rock is deposited into a WRSF 550 m south of the pit. Mine planning and mining cost estimates are limited to the mining and delivery of ore to the crusher and waste rock to the planned destinations. The haul of ore from Beaver Dam to Touquoy is not covered under the mine plan or mining costs.
The Touquoy process plant is designed for an ore treatment rate of 2 Mt/y or 250 t/h based on an availability of 8,000 h/y, or 91.3%. However the crushing section design is set at 60% availability since it operates outdoors and utilizes modular mobile equipment. It will accept Touquoy ore for the first five years of operation and thereafter ore from the Beaver Dam deposit at the same treatment rate using the same unit operations.
Things are on track for commissioning this September.
