Iamgold clears major assessment hurdles at Côté, Northern Ontario

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Midtier gold producer Iamgold has completed a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on its Côté gold project in Northern Ontario, outlining positive metrics that support development following the completion of a prefeasibility study.

The company also announced Thursday that it had received approval of the billion-dollar project's provincial environmental assessment from the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, following on the positive federal environmental assessment issued by the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change in April 2016.

"The Côté gold project provides us with an exceptional option for future growth. Our drilling programme, since Iamgold took over the project, has led to a nine-fold increase in the indicated resource to eight-million ounces with another one-million-ounce inferred resource,” president and CEO Steve Letwin stated.

Despite still being early days at one of Canada’s largest undeveloped deposits, the positive results of the PEA demonstrate the potential for Côté to be a low-cost, 21-year mine with attractive returns at a $1 200/oz gold price.

Based on the PEA, the project generates an after-tax net present value, using a 6% discount, of $543-million, and an estimated 12.9% after-tax internal rate of return. The project’s hefty price tag will be repaid in 5.2 years, with sustaining costs adding $440-million and closure costs at $40-million over the mine life.

The project will produce on average 302 000 oz/y of gold, at average total cash costs of $564/oz and all-in sustaining costs of $686/oz.

The PEA study outlined plans for a conventional truck and shovel openpit mining operation using a processing circuit incorporating primary crushing, secondary crushing, tertiary high-pressure grinding roll crushing, ball milling, gravity concentration and cyanide leaching, followed by gold recovery using carbon-in-pulp, stripping and electrowinning.

The crushing-grinding circuit employed is more energy efficient than a standard semiautogenous grinding mill or a pre-crush circuit, Iamgold said. A thickened tailings management facility is considered and the mine site will be powered by a 44 km tap line connection to Hydro One's Shining Tree substation.

The mine will have a maximum capacity of 60-million tonnes a year, processing 10.6-million tonnes of ore a year grading 0.97 g/t, with metallurgical recoveries targeted at 91.9%.