Mar 1 2017
Atlantic Gold Corporation (TSX VENTURE:AGB) ("Atlantic" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a construction progress update for its Moose River Consolidated Project ("MRC Project"), one of Canada's few construction stage, permitted and financed open pit gold projects.
Construction is progressing as planned with commissioning scheduled for September 2017 and construction expenditures remains within budget. Overall project completion reached 40% at the end of January.
A link to construction photos can be viewed by clicking the following link:
http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Feb22_AGC.pdf
Mine
The Company is working towards operating on two 12 hour shifts per day 7 days per week with regular rotations for three crews plus supervisory staff. All major equipment for pre-production has been delivered and the fleet will be expanded as the mine moves towards full operation. Currently the focus is on moving till and rock for the Tailings Management Facility (TMF) construction. To date approximately 865,000 tonnes of rock has been excavated, including 135,000 tonnes crushed, to provide construction material for the TMF, haul roads and plant site.
Plant
On February 3rd, a key milestone was achieved with the delivery of the ball mill and its components. The mill building is enclosed and the roof and cladding completed. Work has started erecting steel around the mill, and assembly of the ball mill components will start upon completion of steel erection. The 40-ton overhead crane has been installed. Mobilization of the Structural, Mechanical and Piping (SMP) contractor commenced early in February and first structural/mechanical activities commenced on February 13, 2017 on the grinding and reagents areas.
Preliminary placement of the first mechanical equipment occurred during January with the placement of several tanks within the reagents and plant services area.
For the leaching circuit, all Carbon in Leach (CIL) leach tanks and detox tanks are in place. Launders and bypass valves connecting the leach tanks have been installed.
In the reagents building, the concrete slab work as well as the erection of all major plate-work for the CIL and detox tanks has been completed. The foundations are also ready for the Motor Control Centre, gold room and lube room buildings. The first reagent tanks have been received on site and placed in position.
In the mining infrastructure area, work on the run of mine (ROM) wall was completed to the underside of the truck dump slab. The laboratory construction continued with exterior sheeting and roofing installed. Electrical installation has commenced in the Laboratory building. Wall framing has also commenced for the administration building. The septic field for the mine infrastructure area was completed and inspected by Nova Scotia Environment during the month of January.
Energization of the plant sub-station is planned for June 2017.
Tailings Management Facility (TMF)
The original TMF design included a grout curtain for seepage control which upon further evaluation could not be executed as designed. An upstream clay blanket, which is a more conventional method of seepage control was adopted, and is now under construction.
TMF construction is progressing and has now reached 15% completion. The material is sourced from the mine and used as rock fill for the dam embankment. The maximum height required for commissioning and the first 6 months of production is 6 metres before the second lift is required to be initiated. It is expected that activities related to placing the clay core and the layers of fine and coarse filter materials will start in the last week of March. Approximately 25 % of the upstream till blanket has been completed.