Abcourt waking from deep sleep

Patience is a virtue Renaud Hinse, president of Quebec-based Abcourt Mines (ABI-V, ABMBF-O), has nearly perfected over the last 16 years, waiting for silver and zinc prices to rise so production could resume at the Abcourt-Barvue silver-zinc property, 60 km north of Val-d’Or, Que.

Abcourt-Barvue was taken out of production in 1990 because of low commodity prices. But since 2002, the price of zinc has climbed to as high as US$2 per lb. from less than US40 per lb., with more than a US$1 increase in the last year alone. Silver, too, has jumped to more than US$13 per oz. from just over U$4 per oz. in 2002.

And with a revised 1999 feasibility study nearly complete, Hinse says construction of a new mill and cyanide and flotation plants should be under way by 2007.

“The date was changing continually,” Hinse says. “We wish the delay had been shorter, but that’s life.”

Financing and permitting will start in the new year and Hinse expects commercial production to begin within two years. The mine life is estimated at 10 years, with potential for extension.

Abcourt-Barvue has spent more time dormant than in production.

From 1952 to 1957, the Barvue property — now the eastern portion of Abcourt-Barvue — produced 3,200 tonnes of ore per day from an open pit.

Abcourt Mines already owned the adjacent property and acquired Barvue in 1983, naming the adjoined properties Abcourt-Barvue. After spending $20 million on development, the mine went into production from 1985 to 1990. Ore was extracted from underground and then hauled by trucks to a mill in Matagami, Que., 250 km away. Abcourt produced 697,000 short tons of ore grading 3.84 oz. silver per ton and 5.04% zinc, or 2.67 million oz. silver and about 35,000 tons of zinc.

Recently, the foundation of the former Barvue Mines mill was found to be in such good condition that Abcourt Mines might use it for the new mill.

“There’s not a crack (in the foundation),” Hinse says.

Using the old foundation could save the company $100,000.

However, Hinse says, “It’s not so much the money as the time; if we want to start in the winter, pouring concrete then is not as easy.”

The milling process will include cyanidation to recover most of the silver and gold, zinc flotation to recover zinc and some silver, and then a flotation of pyrite to produce non-acid generating tailings.

In the ’80s, silver flotation was done first, Hinse notes.

“By doing the silver first, we were losing quite a bit of zinc,” he says.

One bonus of the pyrite flotation process is that an impervious dam is not needed, saving the company about $5 million.

The pyrite flotation process is relatively new, so Abcourt is conducting further tests before adding the results to the ongoing feasibility study.

The ore at Abcourt-Barvue is found in several oreshoots over a distance of 2.2 km in a major corridor of deformation that runs across the property in an east-west direction. The mine has barely been explored below 300 metres, though other mines in the region have reached depths of up to 2 km.

Open-pit measured and indicated resources stand at 5.1 million tonnes grading 46.7 grams silver per tonne and 3.3% zinc for a total of 7.7 million oz. silver and 169,000 tonnes zinc. Underground measured and indicated resources total 1.4 million tonnes averaging 101 grams silver and 3.4% zinc.

There are also 1.5 million tonnes of inferred resources grading 120 grams silver and 2.98% zinc.

Abcourt Mines’ other properties are: Vendome-Barvallee, a gold, copper, silver and zinc project located 11 km south of Abcourt-Barvue; the Elder gold mine, just outside of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., where a 7,000-metre drilling program is under way; and the Tagami gold property and newly acquired Aldermac copper-zinc property, both near Rouyn-Noranda.