The updated PEA provides a base case assessment of developing the Novador mineral resource by open pit and underground mining, and gold recovery with a standard free milling flowsheet, incorporating gravity and leaching of the gravity tails, with 50% estimated to be recovered via gravity. The economic model supports an operation with a high rate of return over a 12.6-year mine life, with significant average annual production of 255,000 ounces, an increase of 23% from the 2021 PEA. The updated PEA was prepared by Ausenco Engineering Canada ULC ('Ausenco') in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ('NI 43-101'). The updated NI 43-101 PEA Technical Report will be filed on SEDAR within 45 days of this announcement.
Description of the
The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resources considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral Reserves, and there is no certainty that the results of the PEA will be realized. Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.
Since 2016, Probe Gold has been consolidating its land position in the highly prospective Val-d'Or East area in the province of
Ausenco was appointed as lead consultant in August of 2023 to prepare the updated PEA in accordance with NI 43-101 and was assisted by Moose Mountain Technical Services for the mine design.
The independent PEA was prepared through the collaboration of the following firms: Ausenco Engineering Canada ULC (Ausenco), Moose Mountain Technical Services (MMTS), InnovExplo,
Financial Analysis
The economic analysis was performed assuming a 5% discount rate. On a pre-tax basis, the NPV5% is
Cautionary Statement - The reader is advised that the updated PEA summarized in this news release is intended to provide only an initial, high-level review of the project potential and design options. The updated PEA mine plan and economic model include numerous assumptions and the use of Inferred Resources. Inferred Resources are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral Reserves, and there is no certainty that the results of the updated PEA will be realized. Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.
Projected gold production averages 281,000 ounces per year over the first five years and 273,000 ounces per year over the first eight years. The LOM production totals 3,210 koz and averages 255,000 ounces per year. Production will come from open pit mining in the first two years before transitioning to a combined open pit and underground operations afterwards.
Mine Design and Production Schedule
The updated PEA considers open-pit mining from Monique, Courvan, Pascalis gold trends. Underground mining is used to extract material outside of the Monique, Courvan and Pascalis open pits. Underground mining areas are accessed from surface portals and are mined concurrently with the open pits. The underground mining methods considered in this study are longhole retreat for the Monique gold trend and mechanized drift and fill for the Courvan and Pascalis gold trends.
Lerchs-Grossman (LG) pit
Underground mining limits consider the expected processing and mining costs, with mining costs dependent upon the selected mining method. These costs are applied to the block model inside a stope optimizer program to develop mining stope areas. The stope areas are examined and small, isolated areas that would incur high development costs are removed. The remaining stopes are applied with appropriate mining loss and dilution factors. Stopes are scheduled with consideration of throughput capacities on the access ramps, ordered sequencing of stopes, timing of underground production relative to open pit production, and overall personnel requirements.
The scheduled mill feed Resources by type are as follows: 5% Measured, 72% Indicated and 23% Inferred.
The owner-operated mining fleet will utilize conventional truck and shovel methods with 16 cubic metre loaders and 135-tonne haul trucks on 12m benches. Non-mineralized material will be placed as near as possible to the pit rims to reduce haulage costs. Mineralized material will be directed to stockpiles or to the mill. Underground material is direct fed to the mill. The average mill feed head grade during the first five years is 1.67 g/t Au and is 1.30 g/t Au over the LOM.
The mining schedule considers one year of pre-production, followed by approximately 12.6 years of mill feed. The mill feed throughput is planned at 15,500 tonnes per day (tpd) for the first 5 years and then 19,200 tpd for the following 7.6 years. The mill feed is comprised of 67.9 million tonnes of open-pit material and 12.4 million tonnes of underground material. The open-pit strip ratio is 7.43 tonnes waste/tonnes mill feed. Over the mine life, total gold production is forecasted to be 2,106koz from open-pit operations and 1,104koz from underground operations.
Metallurgy and Mineral Processing
The process plant will employ gravity concentration, standard leaching with carbon-in-leach (CIL) technology for gold recovery. The process plant includes single stage crushing followed by semi-autogenous (SAG) and ball milling, classification, gravity concentration, leach and CIL, and cyanide detoxification before tailings filtration. The filtered tailings will be stored in the filtered tailing storage facility (FTSF) for the first three years. After the New Beliveau/North open pit is depleted in year 3, the tailings will bypass the filtration plant and will be then deposited as a slurry to backfill this open pit. The process plant will treat 5.66 Mt of mineralized material per year at an average throughput of 15,500 tpd until the expansion in year 6.
The process plant will be expanded in year 6 of production to increase the plant capacity to treat 7.00 Mt of material per year at an average throughput of 19,200 tpd. This will be done by adding secondary crushing, pre-leach thickening and increasing the primary grind size from 70 to 83 microns.
The mill design availability is 8,059 hours per year or 92%. The crushing design availability is 5,694 hours per year or 65%. The tailings filtration design availability is 7,183 hours per year or 84%. The process plant has been designed to realize an average recovery of 95.7% of the gold over the life of the
Site Location and Infrastructure
The process plant site location selection considered various factors including social, environmental, topographic, accessibility, proximity to existing infrastructure, and overall flow of material to the FTSF. Centralized administration facilities, truck shop, wash bay, tire store, refueling station, warehousing and explosive magazine are optimized for efficient use of facilities.
Based on ongoing geochemical characterization and the geology of the various deposits, it can be considered that the waste rock, mineralized material and tailings should not be acid-generating nor leachable. These positive characteristics of the
Based on a technology, preliminary siting, ground condition and deposition study for the
Filtered tailings are one of the most sustainable methods for storing tailings as there is no need for a dam to hold them in place or potential long-term storage issues. When dry stacking is applied, the filtered tailings (cake) will be handled using a combination of loaders, trucks and dozers to a stockpile immediately northwest of the filtering plant. The filtered tailings will be loaded into haul trucks for deposition on the FTSF, approximately 2.8 kilometres north of the process plant, by road.
When the deposition method changes to in-pit storage, the slurry will be pumped and transported by pipeline to the depleted New Beliveau/North open pit. This approach is also among the most sustainable methods for storing tailings and has the additional benefit of reducing energy consumption, lower operating cost and the backfilling of an open pit.
Runoff from the FTSF, as well as all storage facilities (rock, mineralized material and over burden stockpiles) will be collected in series of water management ponds and drainage ditches. A public road (,
About Ausenco:
Ausenco is a global company based across 26 offices in 14 countries, with projects in over 80 locations worldwide. Combining deep technical expertise with a 30-year track record, Ausenco delivers innovative, value-add consulting studies, project delivery, asset operations and maintenance solutions to the mining & metals, oil & gas and industrial sectors.
About Probe Gold
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Email: info@probegold.com
Forward Looking Statements
Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as 'believes', 'anticipates', 'expects', 'estimates', 'may', 'could', 'would', 'will', or 'plan'. Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Although these statements are based on information currently available to the Company, the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Risks, uncertainties, and other factors involved with forward-looking information could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, statements, exploration results, potential mineralization, the estimation of mineral resources, exploration and mine development plans, timing of the commencement of operations and estimates of market conditions. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to failure to identify mineral resources, failure to convert estimated mineral resources to reserves, the inability to complete a feasibility study which recommends a production decision, the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results, delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals, political risks, inability to fulfill the duty to accommodate First Nations and other indigenous peoples, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, changes in equity markets, inflation, changes in exchange rates, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in the development of projects, capital and operating costs varying significantly from estimates and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR+. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.
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