The Company owns the producing Macassa mine and mill in the Kirkland Lake mining camp as well as the Holt mining complex near Matheson, Ontario (approximately 60 km northeast of Kirkland Lake). The Holt mill, which is currently on care and maintenance, has a capacity of 3,000 tpd and a fully permitted tailings storage facility. The Company is evaluating the potential to integrate a number of satellite deposits with the existing infrastructure in the region. The significant 100%-owned opportunities in the Kirkland Lake camp include:
• Upper Beaver deposit
• Other regional deposits – Upper Canada, Anoki-McBean and Bidgood
• Opportunities along the Main Break where the Company now controls six past producing mines
The Upper Beaver deposit is located approximately 27 km from the Macassa mine and 60 km from the Holt mining complex. As at December 31, 2023, Upper Beaver had approximately 1.4 million ounces of gold and 20,000 tonnes of copper in underground probable mineral reserves (8.0 million tonnes grading 5.43 g/t gold and 0.25% copper); 403,000 ounces of gold and 5,100 tonnes of copper in underground indicated mineral resources (3.6 million tonnes grading 3.45 g/t and 0.14% copper); and 1.4 million ounces of gold and 17,300 tonnes of copper in underground inferred mineral resources (8.7 million tonnes grading 5.07 g/t and 0.20% copper).
Geology
The Kirkland Lake camp lies within the southern Abitibi Greenstone Belt of the Superior Province of the Canadian Shield. The area is underlain by an east-west-trending linear Timiskaming assemblage comprised of volcanic and sedimentary rocks as well as synvolcanic intrusion emplacements consisting typically of diorite, syenite, quartz-feldspar porphyries and monzonite. The assemblage, deposited in a sub-aerial to shallow marine arc-rift environment, is typically bound to the south by the Larder-Cadillac Break (LCB) – which is a major east-trending, south-dipping regional structure that juxtaposed Tisdale mafic to ultramafic rocks (south of the fault) against much younger Timiskaming sedimentary rocks. The LCB lies within the Larder Cadillac Deformation Zone, which is a wide structural zone cutting across several lithologies.
Mineralization
Upper Beaver is a gold-copper deposit that is mainly hosted in the Upper Beaver alkalic intrusive complex and the surrounding basalts it intruded, and is associated with disseminated pyrite and chalcopyrite, and magnetite-sulphide veining associated with strong magmatic-hydrothermal alteration. The mineralization occurs as elongated tabular bodies that strike northeast, dip steeply northwest and plunge 65 degrees to the northeast. The mineralization has been defined along a 400-metre strike length from surface to a depth of 1,800 metres and it remains open at depth.
Exploration
In 2022, thirty-three drill holes totaling 15,599 metres were completed on the Upper Beaver property with two objectives: to infill mineral resource gaps in the Footwall Zone mineralized corridor, between 800 and 1,000 metres below surface; and to finalize the conversion of inferred mineral resources on both the Porphyry and Footwall zones down to 1,600 metres below surface.
The Company is concluding a trade-off analysis on processing options at Upper Beaver and expects to provide an update of the project and next steps at mid-year 2024.
The Company believes that Upper Beaver has the potential to be a low-cost mine with annual production in the range of 150,000 ounces to 200,000 ounces of gold with moderate capital outlays. Processing scenarios are being evaluated for the Upper Beaver deposit. Construction of the required underground infrastructure (including a shaft) is expected to take approximately five years to complete following a development decision.
Regional deposits
Work is ongoing to evaluate the potential to develop the regional deposits Upper Canada and Anoki-McBean as potential ore feed to existing milling infrastructure in the region.
The Upper Canada deposit lies approximately 6 km southwest of the Upper Beaver property, and 1.6 km north of the main Larder Lake-Cadillac Deformation Zone, within a 300- to 400-metre-wide strongly altered deformation corridor. Upper Canada hosts indicated mineral resources of 10.4 million tonnes grading 2.15 g/t gold (containing 722,000 ounces of gold) and inferred mineral resources of 18.6 million tonnes grading 3.11 g/t gold (containing 1.9 million ounces of gold) at underground and open pit depths as at December 31, 2023.
The Upper Canada deposit is hosted primarily in volcanic (trachyte) tuffs and sediments that have been intruded by syenite bodies. Gold mineralization is associated with intensely altered shear zones with fine pyrite and ancillary sulphide mineralization. En-echelon higher-grade lenses are present within a broader envelope of lower grade mineralization.
The combined indicated mineral resources at the Anoki and McBean deposits are estimated at 3.9 million tonnes grading 2.77 g/t gold (containing 349,000 ounces of gold) as at December 31, 2023, and there are additional inferred mineral resources, all at underground depths.