West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. (“West Red Lake Gold” or the
“Company”) (TSXV: WRLG) (OTCQB: WRLGF) is pleased to
provide an update on restart readiness activities at the Madsen
Mine project in Red Lake, Ontario.
“Advancing multiple projects and goals
simultaneously in preparation for restart means the Madsen Mine
site is a busy place,” said Shane Williams, President and CEO. “The
tailings dam lift is now complete and came in ahead of schedule and
under budget, which is a great example of how strong alignment and
effective communication between contractors, site personnel, and
management can yield positive results. This accomplishment sets the
standard for delivery of all projects at the Madsen operation as we
move through the redevelopment phase and towards our goal of a full
mine restart next year.
“We look forward to issuing a pre-feasibility
study in the coming weeks and then pushing ahead to an official
restart decision.”
Pre-Feasibility Study
The Company is working with SRK Consulting to
complete a pre-feasibility study (“PFS”) for the restart of the
Madsen mine. The study is nearing completion; West Red Lake Gold
expects to announce PFS results within one month.
The PFS will be the basis of the Madsen Mine
restart. Regulations require companies to define initial reserves
on a project via a PFS and this applies to the Madsen project today
under West Red Lake Gold. However, there are three reasons why the
Company believes the Madsen PFS will be an accurate, comprehensive,
and sufficient plan for the mine restart.
- Real Costing:
Operating underground at the Madsen Mine for the last year means
West Red Lake Gold has good understanding of real costs, from
blasting, mucking, and moving a tonne of material to running a
consistent definition drill program to operating the water
treatment facility. In addition, the mill operated only two years
ago, so costs for that facility are also well understood. Most
pre-feasibility studies rely on estimates for key costs; the Madsen
Mine PFS will have actual costs for most parameters.
- Final
Engineering: the Madsen Mine is essentially built. Most
pre-feasibility studies include as-yet unanswered questions on
important aspects; examples include full definition of processing
flowsheets or mining methods or tailings facility design or human
resource requirements. With the mine having operated only a few
years ago and with West Red Lake Gold having studied and remedied
many of the issues from that period over the last 18 months, there
are very few outstanding engineering questions at Madsen.
- Detailed Mine
Plan: pre-feasibility studies are conventionally completed before
definition drilling into a deposit is complete. For underground
mines, this means a PFS predates a detailed mine design, which is a
list of stope-defined targeted mining areas with engineered access.
West Red Lake Gold has built a detailed mine design for the first
18 months of operation (approximately 100,000 ounces of production)
and intends to have 24 months of stope-defined mineable inventory
defined prior to restart, which is targeted for mid-2025. This
level of operational readiness is unusual alongside a PFS.
Tailings Dam Lift
The project to increase the height of the
tailings dam by four feet was completed on October 8th, a week
ahead of schedule. The total cost came in approximately 18% under
the expected budget.
This lift creates enough additional capacity in
the tailings facility to accommodate more than 5 years of mining at
a rate of 800 tonnes per day, which is the nameplate throughput of
the Madsen mill.
FIGURE 1. Aerial view of the tailings
dam lift project at completion.
Definition Drilling
Definition drilling continues at Madsen with two
underground drills. The Company has now completed approximately
42,500 metres of definition drilling since October 2023, which has
outlined over 100,000 ounces of mineralization within stope-defined
mining areas with engineered access as per the detailed mine
plan.
Most of these metres were planned to tighten up
spacing between intercepts that define the mineral resource
estimate (MRE) at the Madsen project. The Company’s goal is to
tighten average drill hole spacing from twenty metres, which was
the average distance between holes included in the MRE when West
Red Lake Gold purchased the Madsen project, down to six to eight
metres, which the Company believes is a necessary drill density to
inform an accurate short range model upon which stopes can be
engineered with confidence.
The geology team ranked areas of the MRE down to
12 Level (approximately 600m depth) based on gold grade, tonnage
potential, and accessibility and prioritized accessible areas with
the highest grade and tonnage potential. The engineering team then
planned out underground development to position the drill for
efficiently defining each area.
Drill programs are continuously monitored and
managed by the on-site geology team. The team makes decisions in
real-time as drilling progresses, which may include adding holes in
an area that has returned positive results or extending holes
beyond planned length if geologic observations suggest
mineralization beyond modeled domains.
FIGURE 2. Long Section View of Madsen
deposit showing location of underground drill bays relative to
existing mineral resource. White dots mark past drill stations, red
dots mark current drill stations, and orange dots mark upcoming
drill stations.
One drill is currently in the 09-4026 drill bay
on 9 Level to follow up on a prospective growth area in South
Austin that was previously drilled from 7 and 9 Levels (see 2024
news releases April 18th, and May 7th, and June 11th).
The second drill is currently testing the
McVeigh zone from 3 Level following positive results from 1 Level.
The higher geologic complexity of McVeigh relative to other
mineralized zones at Madsen proved challenging for the prior
operator but West Red Lake Gold was able to incorporate learnings
from those efforts into a new geologic model for the McVeigh zone
that has guided drills to strong gold intercepts in the Company’s
first round of drilling there, including 107.6 grams per tonne
(“g/t”) gold (“Au”) over 2.5 metres (see news release August 12th,
2024) and 17.8 g/t Au over 5.5 metres (see news release August
27th, 2024).
When the campaigns at these drill bays are
complete, one drill will move back to the Austin zone while the
other moves to the deepest bay drilled to date, on South Austin.
The Company is excited to move its drills deeper because Madsen was
mined only to the 7 Level during its inconsistent 1997-2014
operational period and only in McVeigh and the top of South Austin
in its 2020-2022 operational period. As such, the Madsen deposit
has seen less mining below 7 Level and thus offers potential to
host larger areas of mineralization and new discoveries than the
areas higher up that have seen more mining.
Underground Development
West Red Lake Gold has ramped up from one
to three development crews operating underground at
Madsen throughout 2024. Miners are creating access for
definition drilling, completing the Connection Drift, and creating
access to multiple areas in advance of mining, as well as starting
the test mining program.
Year to date, the Company has completed 2,016
metres of underground development at the Madsen Mine. The pace of
development substantially increased in H2 with the addition of new
equipment and additional hires, and this will continue into
2025.
The Madsen mine has seen significant development
by previous operators, starting with the 1936 to 1972 operational
period. In recent times, the mine had 19,919 metres of underground
development from 2019 through 2022 that created access to multiple
parts of the Madsen resource. This significant amount of modern
underground development is fundamental to West Red Lake Gold’s
restart plan and provides significant opportunities for flexibility
and optionality as the Company moves toward production.
Mill Pre-Commissioning
The Madsen mill has been in dry shutdown for 20
months. West Red Lake Gold is taking a progressing approach to
preparing the mill for restart. This approach is expected to have
the mill available for restart in Q1 2025, so that the Company can
turn it on when stockpiles and mining reach levels to supply steady
state mill feed.
Pre commissioning activities are well underway.
Tailing pumps and discharge lines have been commissioned, the
reclaim water feed line and pump are recycling process water
through the mill, the carbon kiln has been brought up to operating
temperature, the flocculant system has been reassembled, reagent
sub systems are 60% complete, and carbon-in-pulp and leach
agitators have been bumped for rotation as a test of operational
readiness.
All senior mill staff positions have been
filled, including mill superintendent, frontline supervisors,
control room operators, and the metallurgical team. Onboarding of
these staff members is on track for completion by November 30.
“Redrilling of the SAG mill liner bolt holes are
a critical path task and this job will get underway on October 25,”
said David Towle, Mill Manager. “Installing the liner and lifter
packages for the SAG and ball mills are also key tasks, as is
setting up the on-site metallurgical lab for operational readiness
and setting up and commissioning the primary crusher, which is
scheduled to arrive on site this week. These are all part of our
restart plan, which has the mill ready to go in Q1 2025.”
FIGURE 3. Photograph of the interior of
the Madsen Mill (upper level)
Test Mining
The test mining program is advancing the first
set of development levels to access the 1099/1100 area.
“Once the first ore-bearing development headings
are advanced, crews will commence mining, utilizing both Longhole
Stoping and Mechanised Cut and Fill,” said Maurice Mostert, Vice
President of Technical Services. “Test mining is planned for areas
of the mine where we want to test our ability to mine efficiently
and safely adjacent to historic stopes, in addition to proving our
understanding of the geology.”
“All the stopes will be stockpiled separately,
then batch processed when the mill is started up next year so we
can reconcile milled grades against the geologic model,” Mostert
continued. “Our primary goal with the test mining phase is to
establish, prior to production, the mining practices that will keep
our people safe and optimise the value of the Madsen orebody.”
Propane Infrastructure
A project to improve the propane system at the
Madsen Mine site is largely complete. The project includes
installation of a second 30,000-gallon tank and pipe reticulation
through the site, eliminating the need for small satellite tanks at
each building.
The Company expects that this project, with a
completed cost of $225,000, will generate annual savings of
approximately $800,000 through reduced propane delivery costs
(larger volumes less often to one location) and through eliminating
the need for an employee dedicated to propane maintenance through
the winter.
QUALIFIED PERSON
The technical information presented in this news
release has been reviewed and approved by Will Robinson, P.Geo.,
Vice President of Exploration for West Red Lake Gold and the
Qualified Person for exploration at the West Red Lake Project, as
defined by NI 43-101 “Standards of Disclosure for Mineral
Projects”.
The technical information presented in this news
release has been reviewed and approved by Maurice Mostert, P.Eng.,
Vice President of Technical Services for West Red Lake Gold and the
Qualified Person for technical services at the West Red Lake
Project, as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of
Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
MARKETING AGREEMENT
West Red Lake also announces that it has entered
into a services agreement dated October 25, 2024 with Creative
Direct Marketing Group, Inc. (“CDMG”), for the
provision of certain marketing and investor relations services to
be initiated October 31, 2024. (the “CDMG
Agreement”) for a term of three months expiring January
31, 2025. Under the terms of the CDMG Agreement, CDMG will execute
a customized marketing plan that incorporate web design, search
engine optimization, digital marketing, social, targeted display,
and traditional media including direct mail. In consideration for
services to be provided by CDMG, the Company agreed to pay CDMG a
retainer of US$1,073,860, of which the Company has paid US$346,860
to date.
CDMG is a full-service marketing agency based
out of Nashville, Tennessee. CDMG and its principal, Craig Alan
Huey are arm’s length to the Company and hold no interest, directly
or indirectly, in the securities of the Company or any right to
acquire such an interest.
The CDMG Agreement is subject to TSX Venture
Exchange (“TSXV”) final approval.
ABOUT WEST RED LAKE GOLD MINES
West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. is a mineral
exploration company that is publicly traded and focused on
advancing and developing its flagship Madsen Gold Mine and the
associated 47 km2 highly prospective land package in the Red
Lake district of Ontario. The highly productive Red Lake Gold
District of Northwest Ontario, Canada has yielded over 30 million
ounces of gold from high-grade zones and hosts some of the world’s
richest gold deposits. WRLG also holds the wholly owned Rowan
Property in Red Lake, with an expansive property position covering
31 km2 including three past producing gold mines – Rowan,
Mount Jamie, and Red Summit.
ON BEHALF OF WEST RED LAKE GOLD MINES LTD.
“Shane Williams”
Shane Williams
President & Chief Executive Officer
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Gwen Preston
Vice President Communications
Tel: (604) 609-6132
Email: investors@wrlgold.com or visit the Company’s
website at https://www.westredlakegold.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its
Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the
policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for
the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT AND FORWARD-LOOKING
INFORMATION
The decision to continue with the advancement of
the Madsen Mine restart and the Company’s operations and plans with
respect thereto, as described herein (the “Madsen Mine Restart”),
are based on economic models prepared by the Company in conjunction
with management’s knowledge of the property and the existing
estimate of indicated and inferred mineral resources on the
property set out in the report entitled, “Independent NI 43-101
Technical Report and Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the
PureGold Mine, Canada”, with an effective date of July 31, 2022, as
amended on April 24, 2024, a copy of which is available on SEDAR+
at www.sedarplus.ca. The Madsen Mine Restart is not based on a
preliminary economic assessment, a pre-feasibility study or a
feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and
technical viability. Accordingly, there is increased uncertainty
and economic and technical risks of failure associated with the
Madsen Mine Restart, in particular: the risk that mineral grades
will be lower than expected; the risk that additional ongoing
mining operations are more difficult or more expensive than
expected; and the risk that production and economic variables may
vary considerably, due to the absence of a detailed economic and
technical analysis undertaken in accordance with National
Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral
Projects.
Certain statements contained in this news
release may constitute “forward-looking information” within the
meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information
generally can be identified by words such as “anticipate”,
“expect”, “estimate”, “forecast”, “planned”, and similar
expressions suggesting future outcomes or events. Forward-looking
information is based on current expectations of management;
however, it is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties
and other factors that may cause actual results to differ
materially from the forward-looking information in this news
release and include without limitation, statements relating to
plans for the potential restart of mining operations at the Madsen
Mine, the potential of the Madsen Mine; any untapped growth
potential in the Madsen deposit or Rowan deposit; and the Company’s
future objectives and plans. Readers are cautioned not to place
undue reliance on forward-looking information.
Forward-looking information involve numerous
risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially
from results suggested in any forward-looking information. These
risks and uncertainties include, among other things, market
volatility; the state of the financial markets for the Company’s
securities; fluctuations in commodity prices; timing and results of
the cleanup and recovery at the Madsen Mine; and changes in the
Company’s business plans. Forward-looking information is based on a
number of key expectations and assumptions, including without
limitation, that the Company will continue with its stated business
objectives and its ability to raise additional capital to proceed.
Although management of the Company has attempted to identify
important factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those contained in forward-looking information,
there may be other factors that cause results not to be as
anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that
such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as
actual results and future events could differ materially from those
anticipated in such forward-looking information. Accordingly,
readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking
information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such
information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Additional
information about risks and uncertainties is contained in the
Company’s management’s discussion and analysis for the year ended
November 30, 2023, and the Company’s annual information form for
the year ended November 30, 2023, copies of which are available on
SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.
The forward-looking information contained herein
is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary
statement. Forward-looking information reflects management’s
current beliefs and is based on information currently available to
the Company. The forward-looking information is made as of the date
of this news release and the Company assumes no obligation to
update or revise such information to reflect new events or
circumstances, except as may be required by applicable law.
For more information on the Company, investors
should review the Company’s continuous disclosure filings that are
available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.
Photos accompanying this announcement are available
at:
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d5025322-ea63-4ef6-8bf2-f6f369eeb88b
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/de0f1895-cad0-43b3-b32f-daff87e60cb7
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8f416e30-d0ea-44bc-8016-4f27b5fdd491
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cf12796c-e2f1-468d-b423-b0946451258d
West Red Lake Gold Mines (TSXV:WRLG)
Gráfica de Acción Histórica
De Nov 2024 a Dic 2024
West Red Lake Gold Mines (TSXV:WRLG)
Gráfica de Acción Histórica
De Dic 2023 a Dic 2024