Pacific Vangold develops Evening Star

Underground development work at the Evening Star mine at Rossland, B.C., is returning high-grade gold values for owner Pacific Vangold Mines (VSE).

Recent work included an extension of the haulageway drift for the Iron Colt joint venture (a partnership with VSE-listed International Silver Ridge Resources) and a raise driven up to a 1988 drill hole which returned a 15-ft. vein intersection grading 1 oz. gold per ton.

That hole is one of 30 (spaced about 50 ft. apart) which outlined a resource measuring 100,000 tons grading 0.31 oz. The resource sits above the raise and is open to depth, as well as on strike to the west.

Muck samples from the 50 ft. of raising to the intersection returned an average value of 0.73 oz. The last two rounds crosscut the hangingwall and footwall zones of the vein after encountering a “knuckle-back” (a sudden change in the angle of the raise), returning 0.83 oz. and 0.91 oz. gold, respectively.

Pacific Vangold is conducting surface drilling to test the strike extent to the west.

Plans call for initial mining of 10,000 tons upon receipt of a bulk-sample mining permit. The company hopes to begin shipping ore early in the new year and estimates cash costs at C$255 per oz. based on a 0.5-oz. head grade ($130 per ton).

Ore would be trammed 800 ft. from the main haulageway to the adit on the Iron Colt joint venture. The material would then be trucked to Echo Bay’s Kettle River mill in Washington state and processed, an arrangement identical to that dictated by the Iron Colt milling agreement.

It is expected that mining will resume on Iron Colt in the new year. About 620 tons were trucked south to Echo Bay’s mill this year, netting more than 600 oz. gold at an estimated cash cost of $170 per ton.