 TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canada's Alexis Minerals is ramping up its newly refurbished Aurbel gold mill, the firm announced on Thursday.
Alexis expects cash costs at its Lac Herbin gold mine near Val-d'Or in Quebec to decline by between $12/t and $15/t as a result, the firm said.
“Milling its own ore provides Alexis with a key benefit of a consistent cash flow, versus the sporadic approach over the past year with the previous custom milling arrangement,” the company said.
Alexis may also boost revenue by offering custom milling to other projects in the area.
Another benefit is the potential to ultimately earn additional revenue by providing custom milling to other local non-Alexis projects.
The Lac Herbin mine started production 19 months ago, and ore has been trucked about 35 km to Richmont Mines' Camflo mill while the Aurbel mill was being refurbished and commissioned.
Alexis bought the Aurbel mill, located 1,8 km east of the Lac Herbin mine, from Aur Resources in 2006.
It was on care and maintenance until refurbishing began in July last year, and commissioning started with crushing low-grade ore in last March.
The mill is currently processing about 650 t/d to fine tune the process and improve the recovery rate from the current 88 % to 92% to the expected recovery rate of between 94% and 96%.
The mill is operating on a shortened week basis as it is being ramped up to the designed 800 t/d and will process the Lac Herbin ore at the mine's usual mining rate of between 450 and 480 t/d.
In its fully refurbished state it would have a 1 400 t/d capacity.
Shares in Alexis Minerals rose 3% on Thursday, to C$0,17 apiece by 12:44 in Toronto.
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