Tailings projects highlight Pamour’s $100-million plans

The Pamour Group of companies — Giant Yellowknife Mines, operator of five mines in Timmins and one in Yellowknife; ERG Resources, operator of a tailings retreatment project in Timmins; and Pamorex Inc., 50% partner in the Bell Creek mine and the operator of several exploration projects in Timmins, Yellowknife, Salmita and Sudbury — is negotiating a gold loan to finance capital expenditures over the next five years, totalling $100 million.

As one of the largest capital expenditures planned in the mining industry today, it could result in this company pouring some 300,000 oz of gold per year by 1992. The two largest projects, and the ones that epitomize the innov ative spirit of this revitalized corporation, are the $75-million project to recover gold from the 151 million tons of tailings that have accumulated over 75 years of mining in Timmins and the $25-million project to do the same with some seven million tons of tailings (from 40 years of mining) in Yellowknife, N.W.T.

Both projects are designed to treat a large amount of the low- grade material during the non- freezing months each year and to produce gold at a low cost per ounce.

When Giant Resources of Sydney, Australia, became the controlling owner of Pamour and Giant Yellowknife, there were some personnel changes at the executive level. Pamour Inc. President and ceo Clifford Frame has brought in Frederick Thomson as project director. Mr Thompson worked with Mr Frame on the Quintette coal project in northeastern B.C.

Dennis S. MacLeod, the founder of the project has disposed of his interest in the Pamour group of companies and moved on to other projects.

Christopher Harvey, erg’s operations manager is also new on the project. He previously worked for East Rand Gold and Uranium (ERGO) of South Africa, where the technology used to re-treat gold mine tailings was pioneered. Mr. MacLeod also worked on this South African project.

When The Northern Miner visited the erg site, which is located directly behind the Schumacher mill in Timmins, the pipeline which takes tailings from the Schumacher mill had been re-routed around the site and work crews were preparing the site to pour foundations for the new mill. Permitting

“Government permits to treat effluent from the mill are imminent,” Mr Harvey says, “and the company is waiting for approval from the city of Timmins, the conservation authorities and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources for structural construction of the mill and the new area where reject material from the erg mill will be placed.”

Pamour will hold 7,060,904 shares, or 66.5% of erg on a fully diluted basis.

The design of the carbon-in-pulp mill (by Kilborn Limited) is virtually a copy of the Noranda mill in Hemlo. A kiln will make it possible to regenerate some 10 tons of stripped carbon per day. This feature provides about 20% more carbon transfer than the design calls for and is described by Mr Harvey as a bit of insurance. “Operations that didn’t get this right in the beginning have paid for it later,” he says.

It will take only 16 hours to leach gold from the ore followed by 24 hours carbon in pulp. The flotation concentrate at 8-12 microns is probably the finest grind on this continent.

What remains to be seen is what, besides gold, will be adsorbed to the carbon. Various base metals, organics, and/or carbonate minerals may become attached to the flakes.

Start-up is set for the third quarter of 1988. Water monitors

One high-pressure (360-lb-per- sq-in) water gun, or water monitor as they are called, has been set up at the north end of Gillies Lake. This is one of two areas in Timmins where mine tailings have been deposited below ground level. It is also one of the highest grade deposits.

Crews are being trained to use the gun and engineers are carefully monitoring its performance. Flow rates will likely be about 2,200 cu m per hour once all 15 guns are operational next spring, says project engineer Paige Wilson.

There should be no problem achieving slurry densities of 40%- 50% solids, he adds. At depth the tailings are semi-fluid anyway and only need a trickle to get flowing, Mr Harvey says. The pumps being used can move chunks five inches in diameter.

One man will be able to operate three water monitors at once.

The biggest problem, Mr Harvey admits, is going to be organic material. Compared to the tailings deposit in Yellowknife, the Gillies Lake deposit in Timmins is more heavily vegetated, The Northern Miner observed after visiting both sites. The Gillies Lake deposit is littered with leaves, twigs and branches, compared to the Yellowknife deposit, which is so clean it is almost white.

Screens with 1.5-mm openings will be used to remove the bulk of the organic material from the slurry.

The erg mill, is expected to recover an average of 80,000 oz of gold per year over the first three years of full operation at a cost of $175 per oz.

Located so close to the Schumacher mill, it will be able to share certain administrative, managerial and reagent costs. The Schumacher mill, which every day treats 1,000 tons of ore from the Pamour No 1 mine, 500 tons from the Timmins surface operations, 500 tons from the Schumacher underground mine and some custom ore is undergoing a transformation of its own.

Currently treating 2,600 tons per day at a cost of about $8.50 per ton, the mill could increase capacity to 3,000 tons per day if Pamour’s reserves can justify the increase. Pamorex is actively working to find more ore as reported in our Oct 12 edition. Last week we erroneously reported that erg was actively exploring claims in the Yellowknife area. This work is, in fact, being carried out by Pamorex.

Tailings from the Schumacher mill (about 80,000 tons per month) will eventually be fed directly into the erg mill where additional gold will be recovered. These tailings grade about 0.011 oz gold per ton.

Pamour retains a 4% net smelter return royalty on production from the tailings being sold to erg, and additionally, Pamour will receive 3.824 cents per tonne for any currently available tailings, and all future tailings sold to erg. Giant tailings

The erg project differs from the tailings project at the Giant mine in Yellowknife in a number of ways. For starters there is only seven million tons of tailings grading 0.067 oz at Giant — enough for only five years of operation, compared to erg’s 16 years.

And secondly, capital costs will be just $25.5 million. Nonetheless, the tailings project in Yellowknife should impact favorably on that division’s gold production costs.

With recoveries of just 40% and costs in the order of $5.24 per ton, or $256(US) per oz, the Yellowknife project should pay for itself in 2.1 years, compared to the erg project, which will take three years to break even.

To contain the tailings from the tailings retreatment plant planned in Yellowknife, Giant is in the final stages of constructing a $8.2-million tailings dam which is believed to be the largest engineering structure to be built in permafrost.

Because tailings will not be reground in the Yellowknife plant, but will be leached directly, throughput will be much lower than that at the Timmins plant, but the amount of gold recovered will be about the same.

Some 37,400 oz are expected to come from the Yellowknife operation during 1988 and some 17,000 oz will likely come from the erg plant in Timmins.

Not a bad little prize from material that was, until now, discarded as waste. This concludes a 3-part series examining the revitalization of the Pamour group of companies as the result of recent changes in the company’s management.