Moneta Gold firms up its case for open-pit and underground operation with intensive 2023 drilling campaign
The president of Moneta Gold is predicting many “upside opportunities” for its flagship Tower Gold Project near Matheson.
In a recent news release, Gary O’Connor reflected on 2022 being “an extremely rewarding year” for the company.
Moneta posted an updated gold resource estimate for Tower Gold and released a positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in September, making the economic case for an open-pit and underground mining operation.
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Tower Gold is 100 kilometres east of Timmins on Highway 101. It sits on the Destor Porcupine Fault Zone, the major geological structure for all the gold deposits in the Timmins mining camp. Parts of the property once hosted open-pit gold production.
At this stage, Tower Gold contains a 12.8-million-ounce resource with 4.3 million ounces in the indicated category and 8.5-million-ounces inferred.
The estimated mine life is 24 years with production of 4.6 million ounces of gold over that span. But the company is convinced of its open-ended gold potential on its 27,000-hectare property as they track new gold extensions around their deposits.
Moneta management believes Tower Gold can host several mines.
“The Tower Gold project has the potential to become one of the larger gold producers in Canada for a projected mine life of at least 24 years, and the potential for the discovery of additional deposits,” O’Connor said in a Jan. 6 news release.
Looking ahead, Moneta's stated focus for 2023 is to upgrade those inferred ounces to the indicated category as they start work on a prefeasibility study (PFS). A prefeasibility study is a key intermediate step in the evaluation process of whether a mineral resource can support a viable mining project. It's more detailed than a PEA.
According to the company’s latest investor presentation, the PFS will be coming out at the midway point of this year along with a new gold resource update.
To finance that study, the company raised $15.4 million last year to do the technical work and carry out a 190,000-metre infill drill program, which is continuing well into this year.
Along with its mining planning and process design studies, the company is continuing its environmental baseline work and is consulting with area communities on how its work will progress.