With the submission of amendments to existing permits for its Premier gold-silver mine, Ascot Resources Ltd. takes another major step toward its vison of bringing commercial mining back to Stewart, British Columbia.

Home to a past producing mine that last operated in the 1990s, Premier has all the major infrastructure – mill, assay lab, crusher, tailing storage area, and underground workings – in place to resume operations.

The property also has permits from previous mining that were confirmed by the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency but need to be amended to reflect the new mine plan.

Working closely with the Nisga'a Nation, Ascot put together a comprehensive Joint Mines Act-Environmental Management Act (Joint MA-EMA) application to amend these already established permits for Premier.

"The submission of the Joint MA-EMA application for the Premier site demonstrates a comprehensive and collaborative effort by the proponent and Nisga'a Nation as we continue to build mining as an important industry within the Nass area," said Nisga'a Lisims Government President Eva Clayton.

A feasibility study completed in 2020 envisions four mines in the Stewart area – Silver Coin, Big Missouri, Red Mountain and Premier – providing ore to the existing mill at Premier. With the mill operating at 2,500 metric tons per day, this operation is expected to produce roughly 1.1 million ounces of gold and 3 million oz of silver over an initial eight-year mine life.

This production is based on 3.63 million metric tons of probable reserves averaging 5.45 grams per metric ton (637,000 oz) gold and 19.1 g/t (2.23 million oz) silver within the Silver Coin, Big Missouri and Premier deposits; plus 2.55 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 6.52 g/t (534,000 oz) gold and 20.6 g/t (1.69 million oz) silver at Red Mountain.

At US$1,710/oz gold, the operation outlined in the feasibility study generates an after-tax net present value (5% discount) of C$602 million and a 78% internal rate of return.

"The Premier gold project is an economically robust opportunity, which envisions building an up-to-date operation at a site with an existing processing plant, tailings facilities, power and road infrastructure," said Ascot Resources President Derek White. "The development plan is to refurbish the site with very limited new land disturbance and bring lasting benefits to all of our stakeholders, including direct employment, training along with indirect opportunities to northwestern British Columbia."

Once permit amendments are complete, the feasibility study envisions it taking about 40 weeks to complete the construction to resume operations at Premier.

Ascot has already begun ordering the long lead-time equipment it will need for Premier. This includes an October order for the semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) and ball mills to upgrade and update the concentrator facility.

Further readying itself for the final push to resume production at the Premier Mine, Ascot secured a US$105 million financing package with Sprott Private Resource Lending and Beedie Investments Ltd.

"Over the past six months a number of milestones have been reached including the ordering of the grinding mills, the completion of project financing debt facilities, the identification of key exploration areas for resource expansion and the submission of the Joint MA-EMA application," said White. "I am confident that the coming year will be exciting for Ascot stakeholders as the project progresses towards production."

Ascot Resources Ltd.

A rendering of the new SAG and ball mills superimposed on a lidar survey of the concentrator facility at Premier.

The permit amendments apply only to the Premier property, which encompasses the Silver Coin, Big Missouri, and Premier deposits considered in the feasibility study. Similar permit amendments will need to be submitted for Red Mountain, which lies on a separate property about 24 kilometers (15 miles) to the southwest.

The feasibility study envisions the first ore from Red Mountain being delivered to the Premier mill during the third year of the mine plan.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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