North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Ascot Resources Ltd. Oct. 31 announced another expansion of the resource at its Red Mountain gold project near the mining town of Stewart, British Columbia.

Ascot gained ownership of the Red Mountain project earlier this year through the acquisition of IDM Mining Ltd., the company that advanced the underground gold-silver project to the mine development stage.

A 2017 feasibility study for Red Mountain details plans for a 1,045-metric-ton-per-day mill that is expected to average roughly 78,800 oz of gold and 228,800 oz of silver annually over an initial six-year mine-life.

At the time, this project hosted 2.07 million metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 8.75 grams per metric ton (583,700 oz) gold and 25 g/t (1.66 million oz) silver.

Prior to Ascot's acquisition, IDM Mining had already significantly expanded the Red Mountain resource.

Red Mountain now hosts 3.19 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 8.81 g/t (782,600 oz) gold and 21 g/t (2.16 million oz) silver.

"We have added 198,000 ounces of gold to the resources compared to the 2017 feasibility study or 78,000 ounces in comparison to the 2018 resource," said Ascot Resources President and CEO Derek White.

The company said this substantial increase in resource "warrants an updated economic evaluation at feasibility level."

Ascot will be carrying out this economic evaluation in parallel with Premier, another gold-silver mine project the company owns near Stewart.

The Premier property hosts the past producing Premier, Big Missouri and Silver Coin mines. All of these historical mines provided ore to the mill at Premier, which remains on the property.

This mill, along with the assay lab, crusher, tailing storage area, underground workings and other infrastructure from 1990s era mining provides Ascot with a vanguard to restart mining around Stewart.

According to a calculation completed at the end of 2018, Premier hosts 2.78 million metric tons of indicated resources averaging 7.46 g/t (667,000 oz) gold and 26.2 g/t (2.34 million oz) silver; and 6.03 million metric tons of inferred resources averaging 7.18 g/t (1.39 million oz) gold and 24 g/t (4.65 million oz) silver.

This includes resources in the Premier, Big Missouri and Silver Coin mine areas.

With the goal of expanding the Premier resources, Ascot completed roughly 44,000 meters of drilling this year focused largely on high-grade gold in all three deposits.

Ascot Resources Ltd.

Ascot Resources plans to leverage the mill and other existing infrastructure at Premier to quickly ramp up mining on its properties at the southern tip of BC's Golden Triangle.

With the 2019 resource expansion drilling complete, the company is having resources calculated for each Premier, Big Missouri and Silver Coin. These upgraded resources will form the basis for advanced engineering studies towards the end of the year and into the first quarter of 2020.

Ascot has indicated that it plans to develop an overall mine plan that incorporates Red Mountain, Premier, Big Missouri and Silver Coin – potentially using the mill as the central facility to process ore from all of the assets.

"The company has identified significant project synergies and optimization opportunities between the Red Mountain and Premier projects," said White. "We are excited to complete the engineering studies for both projects in order to maximize the value to our shareholders."

Federal and provincial permits for developing a mine at Red Mountain were issued earlier this year and the advanced engineering studies for Premier will be used to elevate the existing but idle permits for the past producing gold-silver mine to active status.

–SHANE LASLEY