New Afton’s mine life could be extended

NEWS — The life of the New Afton Mine could be extended by several years if testing on new deposits proves out, mine owner New Gold said today in a report on drilling at the site.

Test drilling in an area beneath the zone currently being mined indicates potential deposits that will be evaluated for economic viability, the company said in its update. The area being test drilled is the C zone, which lies underneath the B zone, the one currently being mined.

“The updated resource estimate will be used to evaluate the optimum extraction level depth for a potential block cave mining plan for the C zone that could extend New Afton’s mine life.”

It said “measured and indicated contained gold resource” has increased by 24.5 per cent in the C zone and the “contained” copper resource by 29 per cent compared to year-end 2013.

The report explains that measured and indicated deposits aren’t proven as viable for mining.

Mark Petersen, vice president exploration, said it’s exciting to see the continued growth of New Afton’s mineral resource. “With four drills currently active, we are already in the midst of the second phase of our 2014 exploration program, the results of which will be included in our 2014 year-end resource update and will form the basis for an internal preliminary economic evaluation.”

New Afton, which went into production in June of 2012, has a current life expectancy of 12 years producing an average of 85,000 ounces of gold and 75 million pounds of copper per year.