Agreement could lead to renewed production at Beardmore by 1987

Gold production at an estimated rate of 15,000 oz a year could begin as early as next year in the Geraldton-Beardmore area of northern Ontario.

A private company, Norben Gold Resources of Peterborough has signed a letter of intent with Pancontinental Mining (Canada), operator of the Pan-Empire joint venture at the Northern Empire mine in Summers and McComber twps., east of Beardmore. Under the terms of the agreement, Norben will get to use an existing 200-ton- per-day mill for a 2-year rent-free period. Norben will then have an option to purchase the mill in the third year. Pancontinental would retain a 25% working interest.

Mill feed will come from mine dumps on the property estimated to contain about 165,000 tons averaging 0.056 oz gold per ton. The mill was last operated by Teck Corp. in 1984 to process waste dump material from the old Leitch property near Beardmore. After losing $515,000 on that project, Teck decided to discontinue the project. The decision was made after treating 23,890 tons grading 0.113 oz gold per ton according to Teck’s annual report.

Norben President Stephen J. Wilkinson is confident he can operate the mill profitably at today’s gold prices mainly because of the confidence he has in a piece of ore-sorting technology. This will be the first time it has been used on a gold property in Canada.

Norben has contracted Orevco Inc. to conduct a test program consisting of ore-sorting and metallurgical trials using a mobile ore- sorting machine with both photometric and electrical conductance/magnetic sensing capabilities. The machine should be capable of upgrading the dump material to about 0.25 oz gold per ton at a cost of about $4 a ton (N.M., Aug 25/86).

“We don’t know yet how much it will cost to start up the mill again,” Mr Wilkinson tells The Northern Miner. “But the company has already started arrangements for an initial underwriting to raise in the order of $3-$5 million to cover start-up and further exploration costs on the property.”

Norben is negotiating with several other companies to treat dump material from the 18 other formerly producing mines in the area. The company estimates there is enough material for 2-3 years of operation. Some companies used their waste rock as fill material in mined out stopes.

Norben also intends to continue the exploration work initiated by Pancontinental on the Northern Empire property. Work done by that company in 1983 returned values of 0.29 oz gold per ton over 1.5 ft, 0.16 over 1.5 ft and 0.22 over 1.8 ft along the eastern extension of the main Northern Empire zone. This zone remains open both at depth and along strike to the east and west.

Norben has already raised $500,000 through a private placement with Alberta-listed Ateba Mines Inc. of Toronto to cover the cost of work this year. Ateba will be taking down 50% of the issued shares of Norben in exchange for the working capital.