Keats Main Trench is Ready The previous Keats Main Trench excavation began on August 16th, 2023, and was completed in just over nine weeks on October 20th, 2023.
Planned trenching at the Iceberg prospect will cover an area similar to the Keats Main trench; however, it will require removal of a larger overburden volume.
With this in mind, the excavation at Iceberg is expected to continue past the ten-week mark.
Planned trenches at the Lotto and Keats West prospects have significantly smaller relative footprints compared to the Keats Main Trench (Appendix 2) and therefore are expected to take a shorter timeframe.
New Found Gold will take a phased approach at each location, contingent on internal project approval and receipt of all necessary operational permits.
Excavation would begin at the largest proposed trench, at Iceberg, having an anticipated start date during June of 2024.
Excavation at Lotto or Keats West is currently not scheduled to begin until the Spring or Summer of 2025.
So, the Iceberg Trench should be completed by September of 2024.
All approvals for the Keats Main Trench were received in August 2021.
Viewed top down, the Keats Main Trench looks very much like the first excavation pass of an open pit.
It would be lunacy to think that the Keats Trench will not now be mined either in the form of serial large bulk samples of recurring annual production