Mining magnate Rob McEwen has big plans for the Black Fox Mine complex, his company’s latest acquisition in the Timmins mining district.
McEwen Mining announced the closing of a US$46.6 million bought deal offering on Sept. 22.
The money is earmarked for the purchase of Black Fox from Primero Mining and for general working purposes.
The $35-million deal announced in August is expected to be finalized during the first week of October.
“The opportunity to buy Black Fox came together quickly and the timeframe to close was short, which meant that our financing options were limited to a bought deal or the issuance of debt,” said McEwen in a company news release.
“Weighing the alternatives, we decided that this offering represented the best option for our shareowners at this time.”
Black Fox’s production target for 2018 is expected to be in the 50,000-gold ounce range.
“Black Fox reminds me a lot of the early days of the Red Lake Mine when I was building Goldcorp Inc. The mine is shallower than many of the larger mines in the Timmins area, and some of its best high-grade zones extend near the bottom of the known mineralization, suggesting there is good potential to grow the deposit at depth.”
McEwen Mining has been making some deft moves in the Timmins camp, including the acquisition last April of Lexam VG Gold and its Buffalo Ankerite, Fuller, Davidson and Paymaster properties.
“Our plan is to continue to develop Black Fox to achieve its maximum potential, invest aggressively in exploration, and leverage the excess mill capacity to process feed from the Timmins properties that we recently acquired with the purchase of Lexam VG in April.
“In addition, we have also acquired a fantastic operational team at Black Fox, which should allow us to aggressively pursue our plans to advance the Lexam VG assets into production as quickly as possible.”
Besides Black Fox, the company has gold and silver assets in Argentina, Mexico and its Gold Bar Mine in Nevada, which will be fully permitted later this year.
