Victoria Gold Corp. Oct. 4 reported that its Eagle Mine in the Yukon produced 124,749 ounces of gold during the first nine months of this year, including 41,561 oz during the third quarter.

The gold recovered at Eagle during the first three quarters of 2023 is 17% higher than the 106,441 oz produced during the same period of 2022. This year's third-quarter gold production at Eagle, however, is down 17% from the 50,028 oz recovered during the same three-month period last year.

The primary factor for both the 2023 nine-month gold production increase and third quarter decrease when compared to last year is the implementation of a new operations plan that involves stacking ore on the heap leach pad during the first quarter of the year.

Since pouring the first bar of gold in the fall of 2019, Victoria has refrained from stacking ore on the heap leach pad at Eagle during the first three months of each year due to the cold weather in the Yukon. Instead, the company took this time to carry out maintenance and other activities at the mine.

In addition to lower heap leach gold recoveries during the winter and spring due to colder temperatures, this curtailment of adding new ore on the pad pushed gold recoveries even further in the year.

Stacking ore on the heap leach pad during the first quarter and distributing planned maintenance throughout the year is moderating quarter-over-quarter gold production at Eagle.

Due to the early start, 6.9 million metric tons of ore averaging 0.75 grams per metric ton gold was stacked on the heap leach pad over the first nine months of this year, compared to 5.3 million metric tons averaging 0.84 g/t gold during the same period of 2022.

This year's third-quarter gold production was further impacted by a roughly two-week evacuation of the Eagle Mine due to wildfire activity in early August.

While the wildfire came within 4,000 meters of Eagle, the facilities at the mine were not damaged, and crews were able to quickly resume full operations.

"We would like to thank our employees and contractors for their excellent response to this situation, which allowed a smooth restart of production," Victoria Gold President and CEO John McConnell said at the time.

As a result, 2.3 million metric tons of ore averaging 0.65 g/t gold was stacked on the pad during the third quarter, compared to 2.1 million metric tons averaging 0.89 g/t gold during the same period last year. Victoria attributes the lower grades to mine sequencing.