Testing at New Amalga to refine mining plans, cut costs, and boost efficiency.

Grande Portage Resources Ltd. Jan. 8 announced the initiation of sensor-based ore sorting test work at its New Amalga Mine project near Juneau, Alaska, a step aimed at optimizing its proposed selective underground mining operation, reducing costs by separating waste rock from ore and advancing the project closer to potential production.

Located about 16 miles (25 kilometers) north of Alaska's capital city, the recently renamed New Amalga Mine project – formerly known as Herbert Gold – is a high-grade project within the historic Juneau Gold Belt, a 99-mile- (159 kilometers) long region that produced over 7 million ounces of gold between the late 1800s and mid-1900s

Consisting of several deposits that the company has been advancing for over a decade, the most thoroughly explored are the Goat, Main, and Deep Trench targets, with others remaining less developed.

As of June 2024, New Amalga hosts 4.72 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 9.47 g/t gold (1.4 million oz) gold, and 5.86 g/t (891,600 oz) silver; plus 1.8 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 8.85 g/t (515,700 oz) gold, and 7.33 g/t (390,600 oz) silver.

Last year, Grande Portage focused on refining its plans for the New Amalga Mine, releasing a conceptual plan centered on selective underground mining and direct shipping ore to offsite processing facilities, a strategy designed to minimize the project's environmental footprint.

As part of its infrastructure planning, Grande Portage partnered with Goldbelt Inc. to develop an ore terminal at Cascade Point, roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) from New Amalga, which would support the efficient transport of ore to Pacific Rim processing facilities or East Asian smelters.

"We are exceptionally pleased to partner with Goldbelt for planning the development of an ore terminal at their property," said Grande Portage President and CEO Ian Klassen. "This is a key step towards implementing our DSO (direct shipping ore) strategy, enabling ore processing and tailings storage to take place offsite while keeping the New Amalga Mine facilities to an extremely small footprint."

Maintaining its focus on sustainability and minimizing environmental impact, the company is now exploring sensor-based ore sorting, a technology that uses X-ray analysis and electromagnetic induction to separate waste rock from ore.

By removing non-valuable material before transportation, this strategy would reduce the volume of material requiring offsite processing, decrease energy consumption, and align with Grande Portage's environmentally conscious direct shipping ore strategy.

"Sensor-based ore sorting is a well-established technology currently in use at many mines worldwide, and we are very excited to be working with Steinert to test its effectiveness on samples representative of the New Amalga conceptual mine plan," said Klassen.

Grande Portage Resources Ltd.

Diagram illustrating the sensor-based ore sorting process, where crushed rock from an underground mine is conveyed to a sensor package for analysis. Compressed air is used to separate valuable ore (light blue) into the accept bin from waste material (red) directed to the reject bin.

To advance this goal, Grande Portage is collaborating with Steinert US Inc., a globally recognized manufacturer of ore-sorting equipment, to test the effectiveness of its advanced sensor-based systems.

This test work is particularly suited to New Amalga, where the distinct visual and geochemical differences between the wall rock and the quartz vein resource make it an ideal candidate for ore sorting. By incorporating this technology, which avoids the need for on-site chemical processing or tailings storage, the company expects to streamline its operations, reduce long-term reclamation requirements, and better align with its direct shipping ore strategy.

The results of these tests are anticipated to help evaluate the potential for enhanced efficiency and cost reductions in the proposed underground mining operation while also optimizing the overall mine plan.

"Integrating ore sorting into the production plan could significantly reduce the amount of mined rock requiring transportation and processing at a third-party facility, lowering per-ounce costs while also providing useful sorter-reject material for underground backfill as part of the mining cycle," said Klassen. "This would further enhance the existing advantages of our proposed direct-ship mine configuration which utilizes offsite processing. It may also create opportunities for inclusion of thinner veins into the mine plan – areas of the deposit which otherwise may not have been considered viable."