TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Gold explorer Premier Gold Mines on Wednesday said it had awarded two contracts to complete two independent preliminary economic assessments (PEAs) for its Hardrock and Brookbank projects, located on the Trans-Canada property in north-western Ontario, to consulting firm Stantec.

Premier said Stantec's North Bay-based mining team would lead the work with processing support for these studies provided by consulting engineering firm BBA of Montreal.

These separate studies represented the first phase of economic evaluation for the two most advanced projects on the Trans-Canada property, located on the Beardmore–Geraldton greenstone belt, with the goal to validate suggested positive economics of each deposit as a standalone entity.

The company said recent scoping work suggested the Hardrock and Brookbank deposits, located 75 km apart, were amenable to both openpit and underground mining methods at different mining rates.

The PEA would optimise the initial results of this study and work was under way to advance each PEA toward completion, expected by the third quarter this year. Assuming favourable outcomes, work would then immediately start on prefeasibility studies for completion by the second half of 2014.

The Trans-Canada project was host to several past-producing mines, which collectively produced more than four-million ounces of gold, from depths mainly within 600 m of the surface between 1938 and 1968.

The Hardrock deposit hosts a National Instrument 43-101-compliant measured and indicated resource of 2.26-million ounces of gold at a grade of 1.51 g/t in the proposed openpit, while the deposit amenable to underground mining holds 889 000 oz of gold at a grade of 5.48 g/t in the same combined categories.

The Brookbank deposit holds measured and indicated resources of 171 000 oz at a grade of 2.02 g/t for the openpit operation, and 429 000 oz of gold at a grade of 7.21 g/t for the proposed underground operation.

Premier’s TSX-listed stock on Wednesday traded at C$3.04 apiece, having gained 2% in value.