Holloway project inching toward production

Ontario may soon have its first gold mine since 1989.

A $12-million underground exploration program at the Holloway project, 60 km east of here, is nearing completion. And partners Hemlo Gold Mines (TSE), Freewest Resources (TSE) and Teddy Bear Valley Mines (CDN), are optimistic the results will justify further expenditures of close to $60 million. The current program is intended to validate half the preliminary reserves of five million tonnes grading 0.27 oz. gold per tonne.

Hemlo Gold, as operator, is studying the feasibility of an underground operation which would bring 1,500 tonnes of ore to surface per day. Project Manager Robert Michaud, who helped engineer the Silidor mine, a smaller Hemlo Gold operation in northwestern Quebec, will write up the study. Given its width, dip and structural stability, the West zone could be mined using low-cost longhole stoping methods similar to those used in the Hemlo camp, Michaud told The Northern Miner on a recent visit. Where the orebody is more complex or where rock quality does not allow longhole stoping, more expensive cut-and-fill mining would be used.

Ore would be trucked to a mill either in Ontario or Quebec. At these grades and judging from ground conditions (and the dilution expected therefrom), about 120,000 oz. could be produced annually.

Hemlo Gold owns 50.8% of the project, Freewest 33.9% and Teddy Bear 15.3%. A decision to invest up to $60 million to bring the property into production could come as early as January.

Once a decision is made and a notice filed with the Ontario government, the partners must hold a public meeting to explain their plans. Then, under the province’s so-called “one-window approach,” an interministerial meeting would be held and a closure plan worked out.

The obtaining of permits would then take two to three months, according to David Constable, a manager with the mining and land management branch of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.

Holloway would then be the first gold mine in the province since the Stock Twp. mine opened five years ago. (For a more detailed account of the project, see the August, 1993, issue of Canadian Mining Journal.)