TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Russian Federation-focused junior gold miner White Tiger Gold has installed a new power line and commissioned a new crushing and screening unit for the Phase 2 expansion of its Savkino mine.

The company is currently engrossed with the expansion of the Savkino mine, and the completion of the new power line and commissioning of the crushing and screening unit for Phase 2 were critical milestones for the company.

The 8 km power line would provide the Savkino mine with more reliable electricity supply, owing to the transmission capacity being increased from 2.2 MW to 4.2 MW and will provide continuous power supply to operations through the life of the mine.

The new crushing and screening unit would increase the Savkino mine's current crushing and screening capacity from 4 000 t/d to more than 9 000 t/d.

“The next important operational milestone will be the commissioning of the agglomerator in late April/early May, which will enable us to significantly increase production in May and more than double gold production this year,” CEO Jim McBurney said in a statement.

The Savkino heap-leach operation, located in south Siberia, produced 18 261 oz of gold in 2012. Commissioning the Phase 2 expansion of the Savkino mine would increase plant capacity from 650 000 t/y to 1.7-million tons a year, using two separate, but identical, production streams.

Commissioning of crushing and screening Unit 2, which includes a cone crusher, jaw crusher and three screeners, has been successfully completed. Unit 2 also has a receiving bunker and conveyor lines. The Savkino mine is expected to now have the ability to handle two ore stockpiles of 400 000 t each.

“This would allow for significantly expanded production capacity, reliability and continuity of output to enable gold production to increase from the existing level to 48 000 oz,” the company said.

The company had started a comprehensive review of operations at the Savkino mine, which would be conducted during the first quarter and led by COO Dr Geoffrey Cowley. White Tiger said it would implement recommendations from the review when it was appropriate to do so and as soon as practicable.