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

Ascot Resources Ltd. Sept. 8 announced that the ball and SAG (semi-autogenous grinding) mills have been delivered and are being prepared for installation inside the mill building at the company's Premier gold project near 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, tailings storage area, and underground workings – in place to resume operations.

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 the first eight years of the mine.

In preparation for a new generation of mining at Premier, Ascot has already begun ordering the long lead-time equipment it will need for the mine. This includes orders put in last October for the SAG and ball mills to upgrade and update the concentrator facility.

"Ordering the ball and SAG mills last year was a prudent decision, and we are very pleased that they have now been delivered in a timely manner – especially amid increasing competitive pressures in procurement of long-lead time equipment in the mining industry," said Ascot Resources President and CEO Derek White.

Permits from previous mining at Premier are already in place and have been 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.

Ascot Resources Ltd.

The 150-person construction camp at Premier is slated for completion by the end of September.

"We continue to anticipate the issuance of our Joint Act Permit Amendment in the coming weeks," said White. "In advance of that milestone, we have progressed many pre-construction activities as a part of our early works program. Most importantly, crews have prepared the ball and SAG mill foundations for installation of the shells and motors, and our temporary construction camp has been installed and will soon be ready to house the workforce required for project construction."

In addition, crews have made significant improvements to various roads at Premier, including grading and widening the eight-kilometer (five miles) haul road that connects the Big Missouri gold-silver deposit to the mill building.

The new water treatment plant location was finalized, and crews have recently been clearing the area to prepare for construction.

"We look forward to progressing into full-scale project construction in the near future and continue to anticipate initial production in the fourth quarter of 2022," said White.

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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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