Gold mid-tiers’ Q3 2024 fundamentals
All-time-high gold prices combined with relatively-contained costs catapulted unit earnings to another epic record.
Landore Resources (AME: LND) has released new resource numbers for the Bam gold deposit at its 100%-owned Junior Lake project 235 km northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
The total in situ global resources at Bam are estimated to contain 1.5 million oz. of gold in 49.2 million tonnes grading 1 g/t gold. The new estimate represents a 47% increase in contained gold, compared to the estimate released in 2019.
The updated estimate includes 1 million oz. gold in 31 million tonnes at 1 g/t gold in the indicated category and 467,000 oz. gold in 18.3 million tonnes at 0.8 g/t gold in the inferred category.
To support the new estimate, Landore’s 2020-21 infill and stepout drilling campaign consisted of 102 holes totalling 24,171 metres. The Bam deposit is known to extend 4,300 metres striking east-west and to a depth of 380 metres. It is open in all directions. Soil sampling has identified gold mineralization along strike to the west for a further 7,000 metres.
Given the shallow nature of the mineralization, the deposit could be mined using open pit methods, and optimization work is currently underway.
The initial metallurgical test results indicate the ore is amenable to conventional milling techniques. Up to 99% of the free gold in was recovered by combined gravity concentration and cyanidation leaching of the gravity tails. Satisfactory leaching took between two and six hours.
Landore says the recent drill campaign confirmed the corrections of an induced polarity (IP) anomaly from geophysics conducted in 2004. Future exploration drilling will target gold mineralization where soil geochemistry has been promising, the footwall massive to disseminated sulphide zones within the Bam gold mineralized zones, and others along the 31-km strike length of the Junior Lake shear and a historical discovery at Toronto Lake. Drilling will restart in the second quarter of this year.
The preliminary economic assessment for the Bam project was updated in January 2020 using a gold price of $1,500 per oz. It gave the project a post-tax net present value of $124.9 million and an internal rate of return of 35.4%. The initial capex requirement would be $93.8 million to create a producer with a 3.5-year payback. The all-in sustaining cost of an ounce of gold would be $806.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)
