The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor A high grade of gold is indeed trapped within a pile of Snow Lake mine waste, according to drill results that bolster the case for a state-of-the-art plant in the northern town. BacTech Environ-mental Corp. had 33 exploratory holes drilled into a massive mound of dry tailings left over from a now-defunct gold mine. The Toronto-based company announced last week that the results show an average grade of 9.6 grams of gold per ton of material, consistent with past findings. Ross Orr, BacTech's president and CEO, said the company is "confident" of the grade but must still determine how many tons of material are contained within the stockpile. That will be done as part of a guideline-compliant resource estimate that is expected to be out shortly, he said. Orr said the stockpile is commonly thought to consist of 250,000 tons of material. If that proves to be the case, then it appears to contain over 80,000 ounces of gold carrying a value of more than $130 million. BacTech expects to spend $18-$20 million to construct a bioleaching plant in Snow Lake that will simultaneously remediate and extract gold from the mound. BacTech hopes to start construction on the plant in July or August of 2012. It would be commissioned about four months later. Meanwhile, BacTech also announced last week that it has closed the second tranche of a private placement originally announced on June 1. An additional $100,000 was raised through the issuance of 500,000 units at a price of 20 cents each. Each unit is comprised of one common share and one half of a common share purchase warrant.
