Ontario’s first new gold mine in 10 years to begin commercial production

Canada’s Harte Gold (TSX: HRT), the company behind what it will be Ontario’s first new gold mine in a decade, is in the countdown to kicking off commercial production at its Sugar Zone operation, expected before year-end.

The company has wasted no time to get to this point. Since landing commercial production permits from the Ontario government in September, it has been running full tilt — it poured its first gold bar in October, had  the mine’s official opening later that same month, and conducted its first production blast in November.

Now, Harte Gold is aggressively exploring to expand the size of the deposit, located only 60 km east of Barrick Gold’s Hemlo gold complex, in White River.

The Sugar Zone mill complex, Harte said in the latest update, was achieving consistent throughput of 575 tonnes per day, which means that more than 24,000 tonnes of material has been processed through the mill since it was switched on.

“We are extremely pleased with the Harte Gold operations team and Halyard Inc., who have turned this mill on and made it run without any major issues,” President and CEO Stephen G. Roman said in a statement.

Until now, the mill has been fed from higher grade underground material and the surface stockpile, but Roman said that would transition to solely underground material by early 2019.

The company added that a flotation concentrate at higher than expected grades was being shipped to the Horne Smelter for processing. Gold is also is being recovered through a gravity circuit at site and shipped in the form of doré bars, it noted.

Mine planning for next year and life-of-mine is underway, Harte said, adding it will incorporate a significant amount of definition drilling completed this year that was not included in the Preliminary Economic Assessment.

Sugar Zone, the first new mine in the Hemlo gold camp in more than 30 years, has an indicated mineral resource of 2.6-million tonnes, grading 8.52 g/t gold for 714,200 ounces contained gold and an inferred mineral resource of 3.59-million tonnes, grading 6.59 g/t for 760,800 ounces contained gold.

Based on estimates, the mine could run for 12 years and recover 904,000 ounces of gold.

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