Toronto-based EnviroGold has launched a coring program at a tailings deposit left by an abandoned mine in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Buchans hosted zinc, lead, and copper mining by the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) from 1928 until 1984, with 10 million tonnes of mine tailings left on the area.
In 2011, the provincial government launched a program for the remediation of this land area.
EnviroGold will work on recovering the metals from a recently discovered extension identified by geophysical surveys in January. Coring will begin coring the Jeff Wall claim this month, collecting details and materials from 99 points within the Jeff Wall claim.
The results of these studies will be included in a mineral resource estimate for the Buchans Project in mid-2022. EnviroGold is targeting initial commercial production of gold, silver, lead, copper, and zinc in 2023.
Average grades for the Buchans Mining District were 14.51% zinc, 7.56% lead, 1.33% copper, 126 g/t of silver and 1.37 g/t of gold.
EnviroGold plans to deploy metal recovery and tailings remediation systems that are scalable and which have the capacity to process up to 1,000 tonnes per day of tailings.
The company signed binding commercial agreements in September 2021 to process tailings at Buchans. EnviroGold found tailings in the Buchans River Delta that were previously unreported, which could increase recoverable precious and base metals.
