In the third quarter, i-80 Gold Corp. sold 4,585 ounces of gold at a realized price of $1,895 per ounce as the Reno-based company began shipping ore for toll milling from its Granite Creek underground mine and continued residual heap leaching at Ruby Hill and Lone Tree.
“Interim processing agreements allowed us to begin,” said i-80 Gold’s chief executive officer, Ewan Downie, in a Nov. 2 earnings call.
The company plans to revitalize production facilities it owns at the Lone Tree and Ruby Hill mines, with Lone Tree processing gold ore from Granite Creek, Ruby Hill, and McCoy-Cove, and Ruby Hill processing base metals.
Downie said gold mineralized material from Granite Creek is “being trucked up the road to Twin Creeks,” where Nevada Gold Mines is processing the sulfide ore from the mine that has five active levels and is constructing a sixth level.
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“The 10,000-ton test parcel under the agreement for sulfide toll milling has been shipped to Nevada Gold Mines,” said Chief Financial Officer Ryan Snow in the call.
The company’s presentation states that it expects that beginning in the fourth quarter, it will see a significant increase in quarterly gold production with the regular shipments of refractory mineralization to Twin Creeks just north of Granite Creek.
“We believe we are setting up Granite Creek to have a very strong year in 2024,” Downie said.
Meanwhile, Granite Creek’s oxide mineralized material was stockpiled and then shipped to a third party, also NGM, as part of the ore sale agreement that began in the second quarter. There were 16,059 tons of mineralized material sold in the third quarter for $4.5 million.
The company reported an adjusted net loss of $26 million, or 9 cents per share, in the third quarter, and revenue of nearly $13.22 million, compared with revenue of $16.07 million in the 2022 third quarter. The operating loss was $17.63 million, compared with $12.26 million in last year’s third quarter.
The company also continued exploration drilling at its Nevada properties – Granite Creek in Humboldt County, Ruby Hill in Eureka County and McCoy-Cove in Lander County.
“In the third quarter, the company continued to see impressive drill results from Ruby Hill and McCoy-Cove. In addition, the company saw an increase in revenue (from) gold ounces sold and tons of mineralized material sold under the ore purchase and sale agreement,” Snow said in the earnings report.
“This increase, coupled with the completion of the amended and restated gold prepay agreement, positions the company to continue to execute on its plans,” he said.
Exploration, evaluation, and pre-development costs totaled $10 million in the quarter and $30.1 million for the first nine months of this year, mainly reflecting the exploration and pre-development work at McCoy-Cove and Ruby Hill, according to the report.
Downie said drilling will extend into 2024 to complete a feasibility study of an underground mining operation at McCoy-Cove, and he said the Cove mining operation is “expected to be our anchor project in terms of gold,” while the large McCoy-Cove property offers additional exploration upside.
He said the company hopes to have the Cove underground project fully permitted in 2024 to advance to full development.
The company stated that expenditures continued during the third quarter on the exploration ramp and hydrology studies at McCoy-Cove south of Battle Mountain.
Underground delineation drilling continued in the third quarter with 16,759 feet of core drilled, yielding what the company said were “extremely positive results.”
The company reported that expenditures continued during the third quarter on the exploration ramp and hydrology studies at McCoy-Cove. The Cove deposit and the McCoy-Cove property are expected to be the company’s core asset in its “hub and spoke” business plan, as well as the company’s highest grade gold deposit.
Underground delineation drilling continued in the third quarter, with 16,759 feet of core drilled yielding what the company said were “extremely positive results.”
The company reported that Lone Tree, which is expected to become the hub of i-80 Gold’s operations and the central processing facility for ore gold mineralization from Granite Creek, McCoy-Cove, and Ruby Hill’s underground deposits, produced 1,775 ounces of gold during the third quarter from residual leaching.
Downie said active leaching at Lone Tree, however, “is now nearing the end of its life.”
Engineering study of the autoclave at Lone Tree advanced during the quarter, i-80 Gold also stated.
At Ruby Hill, drilling was focused on advancing exploration and delineation of multiple mineralization discoveries, with definition and expansion drilling of high-grade polymetallic mineralization along the Hilltop fault structure a continued priority, the company reported.
Multiple holes also are being drilled for in-fill of the Blackjack Zone at Ruby Hill, which produced 1,910 ounces of gold from residual leaching in the third quarter.
Downie said Ruby Hill has both gold and polymetallic zones, and the drilling results at the Blackjack Zone have been “very impressive.”
He said in the call that i-80 Gold is permitting for two declines for underground exploration and later mining, reporting that “we will be mining three types of mineralization out of the same underground workings.”
Read More:i-80 Gold reports gold sales for third quarter
2023-11-03 13:15:00
