Artemis Gold announced that its Blackwater Mine, located in central British Columbia, is in the final stages of construction and commissioning, with the first gold pour expected by the end of this year.
In a Thursday update, the company revealed that the first batch of ore has been introduced into the crushing circuit at the processing facility. The commissioning phase is expected to transition fully to the operations team in the coming weeks.
Mining operations at the open-pit site, approximately 160 kilometers southwest of Prince George, began this quarter.
The 225kV renewable grid power line and substation have been successfully commissioned and are currently supplying power to the Blackwater site as planned. With the 25kV plant-wide power network nearly complete, Artemis expects to phase out and decommission the plant’s diesel generators by the end of 2024.
Construction activities for the tailings storage facility are also complete and ready for production as scheduled.
Artemis plans to feed the first batch of ore into the ball mill in the coming weeks, maintaining its target of pouring the first gold by year-end.
Once operational, Blackwater will become the first new gold mine in the province since Brucejack in 2017, with an average annual production of 500,000 ounces of gold equivalent during its first decade.
As of 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, Artemis Gold’s shares were up by 6.2%, valuing the Vancouver-based miner at CAD 3.3 billion (USD 2.3 billion).
[Source – 中国金属网] Artemis Gold的Blackwater矿处于最后调试阶段 https://www.metalchina.com/
