Bosses at Red Lake's newest mine pleased with operating performance

Four months after the first pour gold at Red Lake's newest mine in December, Pure Gold Mining keeps discovering high-grade gold.

At the same time, the underground mine southwest of the community, is ramping up operations to achieve commercial production status by the middle of this year.

The Vancouver-based mining company, which is 3,700 metres into a 21,000-metre drill program, released early results of high-grade intersects at three targets near the mine.

Pure Gold has two drills working on the surface and two rigs below ground in the mine.

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Surface drilling at its Wedge target, two kilometres south of the mill, yielded one intersection of 16.6 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold over 5.0 metres.

At Treasure Box, three kilometres north of the mill, one drill hole produced a result of 19.2 g/t gold over 1.1 metres. At the No. 1 Vein, just east of the mine, showed a core result containing 16.1 g/t over 2.0 metres.

In a March 4 news release, Pure Gold president-CEO Darin Labrenz said the exploration program is in keeping with their strategy to keep growing the gold base to support mining operations on their 47-square-kilometre property "for many years to come."

"As we continue to systemically discover new zones and expand the areas of known high grade gold mineralization on our property, results such as these broad, high-grade intervals are exciting, as they reinforce the continuity of high-grade gold mineralization across our seven-kilometre gold corridor both laterally and at depth,” said Labrenz.

On the mining and milling side, the company is pleased with the "steady progress" being on made as they move toward achieving full commercial production by the second quarter of this year.  

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The company said 260 persons are employed at the mine site.

According the news release, "performance to-date has met or exceeded expectations with respect to underground development and ore production rates, milling performance and gold recovery. Gold pours and shipments have continued regularly throughout the ramp-up period."

One ramp is being used to access the underground mine, down to a depth of 300 metres. The first high-grade stopes came into production in late February.

Construction on a second decline is underway at the northeast section of the mine and is being carved out at a rate of seven metres a day.

The goal is move more tonnes out to the mill to meet its designed processing capacity of 800 tonnes per day. Last month, the mill was averaging 600 tonnes a day but peaked at times to 700 tonnes daily in the month's latter half. The company aims to reach 800-tonne mark in the coming weeks.

Pure Gold said gold recoveries have been tracking in line with expectations at approximately 95 per cent and gold pours have been happening at a rate of one per week with regular shipments of gold doré to the Royal Canadian Mint.