GUYANA Goldfields Inc has commenced work at Aurora, Region Seven, to establish the first underground gold mine in Guyana.
The company announced that it had completed its first blast on a tunnel entrance at an area called Mad Kiss.
The contractor will next reinforce the starting point of the entrance; he will then extend a decline tunnel which will allow vehicles and equipment to travel in and out of the mine up to 200 metres, to fulfil the scope of the early-works phase.
Guyana Goldfields said it expects that the decline tunnel will provide access to all principal underground mining areas; these include some higher-grade zones in Mad Kiss and East Walcott that could potentially provide supplemental mill feed during the development period.
The ultimate plan in the coming months is to advance the exploration decline approximately 2,500 metres and thus provide a platform for further underground exploration and definition drilling
The 200 metres decline is expected to be completed early next year.
“The blast is a key milestone marking the commencement of underground construction. The decline tunnel provides an ideal platform to potentially upgrade and expand the current underground resource and unlock the full potential of the Aurora deposit,” President and CEO Scott Caldwell said.
Caldwell had noted on a previous occasion that a higher quality of gold lies below the base of the Aurora Mines, but the company cannot expand the pit further because of the Cuyuni River; so the other option was to go underground.
This method, he added, would result in less disturbance to the environment.
Earlier this year, Guyana Goldfields Inc announced that gold produced at its Aurora Gold Mine for 2017 had totalled 160,500, finishing the year with its strongest quarter in the last quarter of the year since commencing operations in 2015.
“The fourth quarter [of 2017] was the strongest quarter for gold production in the company’s history, despite undergoing four scheduled down days in November for a mill liner change.
“The operational improvements and capital investments made throughout the year in the mining fleet, bulk emulsion delivery system, and logistics haulage fleet are yielding operational efficiencies, which are expected to translate to lower unit costs in the fourth quarter.
“To date, Aurora has proven to be a strong, high-grade asset with exceptional cash-flow generation. We look forward to continuing this strong performance into 2018 by delivering an improved mine plan that reduces overall capital and operating costs and further improves cash flows,” Caldwell stated.
Last month, Guyana Goldfields Inc announced that gold production for the third quarter from mining operations at its Aurora Gold Mine ended September 30, 2018.
It totalled approximately 40,980 ounces poured (41,247 ounces recovered)
The company sold 41,200 ounces of gold at an average realised gold price of US$1,200 per ounce, generating gross third- quarter revenues of US$49.4 million.
According to Caldwell, the company underground operations are aimed at extracting more than two million ounces of the yellow metal. Aurora has a total gold resource of 6.25 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated categories, as well as an additional 1.79 million ounces of gold in the inferred category.
