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Canada

Touquoy Mine

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Overview

Mine TypeOpen Pit
StatusCare and Maintenance
Commodities
  • Gold
Mining Method
  • Truck & Shovel / Loader
Production Start... Lock
SnapshotSince 2019 mine's production and financial results of Touquoy mine have been included into the Atlantic Gold operations.

In January 2023, mining activities at the Touquoy open pit concluded and the operation moved to processing stockpiled medium and low grade ore. Processing operations were hoped to last until the end of 2024 if approvals had been obtained.

The delays in obtaining approval have resulted in the early completion of low-grade stockpile processing at Touquoy. St Barbara has withdrawn existing permit applications. October 10, 2023, Touquoy has transitioned into care and maintenance.
Related AssetAtlantic Operation

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
St Barbara Ltd. 100 % Indirect
St Barbara has 100% ownership, through its wholly owned subsidiary Atlantic Mining NS Inc., of the tenements over Touquoy.

Deposit type

  • Mesothermal
  • Vein / narrow vein
  • Orogenic

Summary:

The known deposits within the Project area are considered to be examples of turbidite-hosted, orogenic mesothermal gold deposits.

A number of argillite units, separated by greywackes, occur within the Touquoy property. Mineralization is hosted within the Touquoy argillite unit of the Moose River Formation of the Goldenville Group. The argillite is folded around the Moose River–Fifteen Mile Stream Anticline, a regional structure that can be traced for at least 47 km from a position approximately 6 km south west of the Touquoy deposit, to approximately 4 km northeast of Fifteen Mile Stream.

The anticline geometry varies along its length in the property area, from an upright tightly-folded anticline in the vicinity of the Touquoy deposit to multiple tight folds, overturned to the north, in the Stillwater area.

The argillite unit is as much as 180 m thick close to the hinge in the northern limb and appears to thin with depth. It is much thinner in the southern limb, typically 25–60 m wide. In the northern limb, the Touquoy argillite is separated into upper and lower units by a distinctive marker horizon, the rip-up unit, which varies from a thin (<2 m thick) horizon of sparse sandstone rip-up clasts in a finer grained matrix to a fine or medium grained greywacke. The rip-up unit has only rarely been recognized in the southern limb.

The Moose River–Fifteen Mile Stream Anticline is tightly folded and upright to overturned with both limbs dipping north. The anticline hinge is doubly-plunging, with shallow plunges to both northeast and southwest. It has been disrupted by a number of northwest-trending faults with contrasting fold geometries occurring on opposite sides of some of those faults showing that folding and some of the faulting had similar timing.

Two major faults appear to have a significant effect on mineralization thickness at Touquoy, the curvilinear West Fault and the relatively planar Northeast Fault:

• The West Fault is interpreted to show normal movement such that the anticline to the east of the fault has dropped and argillite on the southern limb of the anticline, west of the West Fault shows relative displacement to the south;

• The Northeast Fault comprises an approximately 10 m to 20 m wide zone with intensely faulted and fragmented intervals separated by weakly sheared or quite coherent intervals. It juxtaposes a sequence of barren or very weakly goldanomalous argillite and greywacke against the Touquoy argillite and its hanging wall units.

A discrete structure (or structures) parallel to the anticline axial surface and representing a hinge fault or faults has been tentatively identified in several drill sections, and may have a role in localising gold mineralization.

A series of north- to northeast-trending and east- to northeast-trending faults have displaced both stratigraphy and gold mineralization, although it is possible that some of these faults were also active during gold mineralization.

A well-developed axial plane cleavage is recognised within argillite layers while greywacke layers exhibit weakly developed pressure solution cleavage. Flexural slip occurred during folding and disruptions in bedding orientation in the hinge position is interpreted to reflect repetition (crumpling) of the fold hinge, to produce parallel fold axes at Touquoy.

The Touquoy host rocks have been metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies such that the dominant mineral assemblage in the argillites is quartz, muscovite, chlorite ± albite, with accessory ilmenite and rutile.

Gold mineralization is best developed in the northern limb of the anticline where it broadly conforms to bedding over a strike length of approximately 600 m. Mineralization is less persistent in the anticlinal hinge but is well developed in the southern limb over a strike length of approximately 250 m where a bedding control is less apparent but where mineralization is associated with shearing near the contact between the Touquoy argillite and hanging wall Touquoy greywacke.

Gold occurs as native gold, and has been observed in a number of settings, including along shear cleavage, hair line fractures; in pressure shadows; as inclusions; on the margins of sulphide grains; in thin bedding-parallel quartz veins and stringers where it is often associated with pyrite or pyrrhotite and sometimes with base metal sulphides, particularly galena and chalcopyrite; and on the margins of tightly-folded quartz veins, often at, or close to, fold hinges.

Gold grain size as indicated by petrographic studies varies from 1 µm to >1 mm and gold grains up to 1.5 mm in size have been observed. Sulphide minerals accompanying the gold mineralization are pyrrhotite, usually aligned along the axial plane cleavage (1–2%), arsenopyrite, often as coarse porphyroblasts (1%) and pyrite (<1%). Other sulphides are rare. At a macro scale, there is typically poor correlation between arsenic and gold content.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Milling equipment has not been reported.

Processing

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Production

CommodityUnits202320222021202020192018
Gold koz  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe9391
All production numbers are expressed as metal in doré.

Operational metrics

Metrics20232022202120202018
Annual milling capacity  ....  Subscribe
Ore tonnes mined  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe3,972,813 t
Waste  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Total tonnes mined  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe6,800,668 t
Tonnes milled  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe2,108,420 t
Daily mining rate  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe18,632 t
Daily milling rate  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe5,776 t
Stripping / waste ratio  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe0.71

Production Costs

Commodity20232022202120202018
Credits (by-product) Gold  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Cash costs Gold  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe 558 / oz  CAD
Total cash costs Gold  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
All-in sustaining costs (AISC) Gold 731 / oz  CAD
All-in sustaining costs (AISC) Gold  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
** Net of By-Product.

Financials

Units20232022202120202018
Sustaining costs M  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe 9.1  CAD
Revenue M  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe 128.3  CAD
Gross profit M  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Operating Income M 55.9  CAD
After-tax Income M 27.9  CAD
Operating Cash Flow M 69.6  CAD

Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Oct 29, 2023
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Oct 29, 2023
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Oct 29, 2023
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Feb 3, 2024

Aerial view:

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