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 Waste left over from the Tartan Lake mine may hold the key to whether the long-idle operation finally reopens. Satori Resources, which now owns the former mine near Flin Flon, has been sampling the gold content of tailings that have remained at the site since its closure 23 years ago. 'Satori is...assessing whether potential revenue can be generated from gold sales from the reprocessing of the tailings, sufficient enough to offset full or partial costs of re-commissioning the mine,' Jennifer Boyle, president and CEO of the junior miner, said in a news release. Satori has been told that during the original commissioning of the mine, as adjustments to crushing, milling and metallurgical recovery were made, it is believed much of the initial output of gold-laced ore went straight into the tailings pond. Boyle said an assessment of whether to recommission the mine _ Satori's primary property _ will be the company's focus in 2012. She said the company is now assembling a team of technical experts to reprocess ore in the tailings sometime this year. Satori expects preliminary results from a sampling program undertaken at the tailings pond to be released shortly. Next phase The Toronto-based company said the report will be vital in determining the next phase to confirm the total inferred volume and grade of the tailings. As part of an ongoing clean-up program, Satori said it has already recovered 79.9 ounces of gold and 4.61 ounces of silver from 2.46 tons of material gathered from inside the Tartan Lake mill. The concept of recovering valuable metals from within tailings is not new to northern Manitoba. BacTech Environmental, a Toronto-based company, plans to build a plant this year in Snow Lake that will extract gold from a decades-old mound of mine waste. See 'Form...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 It was estimated in 2009 by the former owners of the Tartan Lake property that restarting the mine and mill would produce between 60 and 70 jobs. Meanwhile, Satori says its 2011 diamond-drill campaign at the Tartan Lake site has extended gold mineralization to the west, confirmed continuity of gold to the south and demonstrated potential for expansion to the east. Overall, 19 holes comprising 4.13 kilometres were drilled. Four of those holes were drilled outside of the resource area, in the Ruby Lake area, to evaluate the continuity of the mineralized system to the west part of the Tartan Lake property. Two other holes were drilled northeast of the site to test geophysical anomalies. Talk of restart Since at least 2009 there has been talk of restarting the Tartan Lake mine, which operated from 1987 to 1989 about 12 kilometres northeast of Flin Flon. But despite some preliminary work, no definitive announcement has been proclaimed as the property has changed hands. Before Satori, the site was most recently owned by Claude Resources of Saskatoon and St. Eugene Mining of Vancouver. St. Eugene had previously spoke of restarting the mine by the end of 2011, a time frame that was obviously not met. During the time of its operation, the mine was owned by Granges Inc., an American company. Granges blamed the 1989 closure on weak gold prices. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of information supplied by Satori.
