Nova Scotia Gold Without any fanfare Ressources Appalaches (V.APP) is quietly returning Nova Scotia’s Dufferin Gold mine to production. May 8th, 2014 the company announced that the crushing unit of the Dufferin Gold Mine processing plant began processing ore and the gravity line at the plant is currently being tested.
May 29, 2014 the company announced the successful completion of a $1,284,050 million private placement to extend and define its Dufferin gold resources.
For CEO Alain Hupé the start up of the crushing unit is another step on the road to pouring gold.
“There are a couple of stages. We have to stockpile ore from underground and continue to produce ore on regular basis.” explained Hupé, “Then we crush the ore in the mill and turn it through the ball mill. At the same time we are commissioning the gravity circuit with water and then, next we’ll start the flotation circuit.”
“75% of the gold will come out in the gravity process and we’ll pour doré on site. Then we will put the rock through floatation to produce concentrate and that concentrated will be shipped away to be smelted.”
Ressources Appalaches was founded in 1994 and was listed on the TSX-V in 1997. “We were working on Appalachian rocks. Hence the name. We were looking for deposits in Quebec. In 2006 we were driving down the road in Nova Scotia looking for other gold properties and saw a sign for the Dufferin Mine beside the road. We discovered it was owned by a private company and we visited the mine site.”
Nova Scotia had a lot of gold mines from 1900 to 1980, “Lots of mines but everyone quit.” said Hupé.
The visit to the Dufferin Mine site found a mine which had been shut down by a private company in 2001 when the gold price drop below 300$/oz. There was not much information about the mine. It had found in 1994 and had been drilled in 1999.
Ressources Appalaches bought the private company and the mine in 2009 for $4 milllion. “We got the lease, the plant and the land. But the mine was full of water. Now it is almost dewatered.” said Hupé.
The company has not filed a 43-101 resource estimate. It’s internal estimates suggest that there are at least 75,000 ounces of gold available for recovery. “That would be about three years production. This is based on a block 700 meters by 100 meters in depth. It’s an extension of the previous galleries. The deposit is actually drilled over 1.4 km length to 400 m at depth.”
Hupé says that the company plans to do additional infill drilling and file a 43-101 resource estimate with the goal of extending the estimated mine life to 6-10 years.The deposit itself is a sedimentary gold deposit where the gold has migrated into the folds of the host rock, typical of Saddle Reef Vein deposit.
For the moment, the company is “concentrating the work effort on the mine.” When we spoke to Hupé he told us that the company was days away from pouring its first gold. As we write we are anticipating that announcement.