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.
Deliberate and balanced progress is how Garson GoldÕs approach to the eventual reopening of the New Britannia Mine can best be described. It appears the company is not willing to hedge any bets or tip their cards; however, they are out to prove theyÕve got themselves a mine Ð and a damned good one at that. With three drills turning on the property, thousands of metres of core split and logged, an airborne mag survey completed, and close to 1,000 soil samples chemically analyzed, itÕs getting close to ÔgoÕ time. But wait, thereÕs still one more Ôdrift to driveÕ! In October of 2006, when the then-joint venture partners of Piper Capital and Garson Resources announced the purchase of the New BritÕ property, they noted that a Ôscoping studyÕ was part of their future plans. One year later, on December 10, 2007, they reported that Micon International Limited had been engaged to complete this study and with it, assess the viability of re-establishing gold production at New BritÕ. David Tafel, President and a Director of Garson Gold, states that in general terms, a scoping study is essentially a pre-feasibility study. ÒIt is an economic analysis done by a third party on reactivating the mine,Ó Tafel said during a phone interview from his Vancouver office. ÒItÕs not a full feasibility study, but what is being done is pretty detailed. A production decision could possibly be based upon it.Ó Tafel explained that there are a number of ways of going about the reopening of the mine and the company will be looking at several alternatives. Garson has been focusing its exploration efforts thus far on the No. 3 Zone and as a result, that formation will shape a major portion of the scoping study. ÒThat zone is key to us making a decision to reactivating the facility,Ó Tafel confirmed. At present, No. 3 ZoneÕs ramp is driven to the 450-ft. level. And depending upon the results of the companyÕs study, they may be taking it down to the 900-ft. level. ÒOur scoping study is effectively looking at the historic shaft, mill, and the possibility of a drift over from the shaft to No. 3 Zone,Ó Tafel said. ÒI suspect that initially it will be similar to TVXÕs mining of the No. 3 Zone, but it looks like that is a pretty big deposit. It could well be and probably will be the new main mine. Having the shaft certainly allows us access over to that area as well as the ability to bring our ore up the shaft. But at this point, that is shaping up as a second stage mining scenario.Ó Tafel stated that Garson hopes to make a production decision on the mine by mid-2008. He adds that as well as No. 3 Zone, there are other areas where the company has been doing exploration. ÒWe are doing a regional analysis of what is in the area,Ó Tafel said. ÒOf course our main focus is on our own property, and there are an awful lot of really good targets on the property. So itÕs just a matter of prioritizing and being able to time manage with the number of people and amount of cash that we have.Ó Asked if the ropes would be going back on the New BritÕ hoist within the month, Tafel noted that Garson has had an engineering firm come in and get some very detailed quotes in relation to their study and this may be where that assumption was manifested. ÒThe ropes will not be going on at this point, but give us a shout back if you see it happening,Ó he laughed. My Take on Snow Lake runs Fridays.
