Vancouver – Aspiring gold miner Cumberland Resources (CLG-T) has finally received the feasibility study for its wholly-owned Meadowbank project located 70 km north of Baker Lake, Nunavut.
Following last year’s delay in finalizing the study, resulting in a year’s postponement to development plans, and sticker shock at the plus-$350-million capital cost estimate, Cumberland retrenched and launched a $4.7-million drill program focused on expansion of the deposit and the modeled open pits.
The company fine-tuned all aspects of project economics, specifically optimizing capital costs and planned gold production rates. The effort seems to have paid off. The feasibility study shows a pre-production capital expenditure of $300 million for the planned open pit operation, at least 17% less than the previous estimate, along with an accelerated mining plan of 2.7 million tonnes-per-year, producing an average of 316,000 ounces of gold annually over the life of the mine.
Additionally, modifications to open pit scheduling and the construction of a 102-km all-season access road (versus a winter road) allow for improvements in project economics. The proposed conventional road to Baker Lake will mitigate certain on-site infrastructure requirements and improve construction scheduling and ongoing operations costs.
A draft environmental impact study has been submitted to the Nunavut Impact Review Board.
Proven and probable open pit reserves of 21.9 million tonnes grading 3.9 grams gold per tonne have been outlined in the Portage, Vault and Goose pits at Meadowbank. The project hosts a total measured and indicated resource of 23.3 million tonnes grading 4.4 grams gold, plus an additional 3.4 million tonnes of inferred resources averaging 4.3 grams gold. The six main deposits at the project (North Portage, Third Portage, Bay Zone, Goose Island, Vault and PDF) are all near surface and amenable to open pit mining methods.
The 25-km long Meadowbank trend contains greenstone belt associated gold mineralization within units of iron formation and sheared meta-volcanics.
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