Column: Electric dreams turn into a nightmare for battery metals
A sector that was once racing to build new supply has been closing mines and deferring projects as low prices bite into the cost curve.
Borealis Mining (TSXV: BOGO) has poured its first gold at the Borealis mine in Nevada after acquiring the past-producing site this year.
The recently-listed miner poured doré bars weighing about 651 oz. and containing 21.97 % gold and 20.17% silver, the company said in a release on Wednesday.
It plans to increase the gold composition of the bars and the number of pours by stripping more carbon columns in its recovery process and adding more cyanide to parts of the leaching pad that haven’t been leached.
The company is also seeking contractors to crush its 330,000-tonne stockpile of ore to “generate meaningful gold production,” CEO Kelly Malcolm said.
“Borealis is unique to many of our peers in the junior exploration sector in that we are revenue generating and control a fully permitted mine and ADR (adsorption, desorption and recovery) facility,” Malcolm said in a news release.
Shares in Borealis Mining slid 2.5% by mid-Wednesday in Toronto to C$0.79 apiece as wider markets fell, valuing the company at C$65.7 million ($48.8 million).
The deposit was discovered in 1978 and entered production during the 1980s. The mine produced 500,000 oz. of gold at 2.02 grams gold per tonne from eight near-surface open-pit oxide deposits. Minor production occurred from 2011 to 2013 and 2021 to 2022 for another 125,000 oz. of output.
The mine was previously owned and operated by then Toronto-listed Gryphon Gold, which went bankrupt in 2013 and lost control of the asset to Waterton Global Resource Management. Parties fought over the project in court for several years, though Waterton received approval to reopen the mine.
The Borealis project covers about 60 sq. km. linked to a road network and infrastructure on site. The property hasn’t been drilled since 2011, but is considered to have high-grade expansion potential based on historical results, the company said.
Gryphon calculated a historical resource of 1.83 million oz. grading 1.28 grams gold in the measured and indicated category, and 195,000 oz. grading 0.34 gram in the inferred category.
