Mining Intelligence and News
Canada

Island Gold Phase 3Plus Expansion Project

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Summary

Mine TypeUnderground
Study CompletedPrefeasibility
StageConstruction
Commodities
  • Gold
  • Silver
Mining Method
  • Longitudinal open stoping
  • Alimak
  • Avoca
  • Transverse open stoping
Backfill type ... Lock
Project Timeline... Lock
Mine Life... Lock
SnapshotIn 2022, Alamos Gold announced the Phase 3+ Expansion at Island Gold, increasing the processing capacity to 2,400 tpd, which will involve various infrastructure investments, including the installation of a shaft, paste plant, and accelerated development to support higher mining rates.

Following the completion of the expansion in 2026, the operation will transition from trucking ore and waste up the ramp to hoisting ore and waste to the surface through the new shaft infrastructure, significantly increasing production and reducing costs.

While the Phase 3+ expansion plan originally included an upgrade to the Kremzar facility, this is no longer necessary after the acquisition of the significantly larger Magino mill. The Kremzar mill is expected to be decommissioned in 2025, with Island Gold ore processed at the Magino mill, benefiting from substantially lower processing costs.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Alamos Gold Inc. (operator) 100 % Direct
Alamos Gold Inc. owns and operates the Island Gold mine.

Contractors

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Deposit type

  • Orogenic
  • Vein / narrow vein

Summary:

The Island Gold Property is located in the Michipicoten Greenstone Belt (MGB) which is part of the Wawa Subprovince within the Archaean Superior Province. The MGB is approximately 140 km long and up to 45 km wide. The metamorphic grade of the subprovince is greenschist but amphibolite facies can be seen locally or proximal to intrusions. A major regional deformation zone called the Goudreau Lake Deformation Zone (GLDZ) is situated throughout the area. It is a north-easterly trending structure which has been traced along strike for 30 km with a width of 4.5 km and believed to be the main control of gold mineralization for the Project area. It is a high angle oblique-slip fault zone with an overall dextral movement cutting stratigraphy at a shallow angle. There are three main splays to the GLDZ in the area, the southernmost of which hosts the Island Gold Mine structure which contains a stacked sequence of east-northeast striking, steeply dipping, and subparallel zones of gold mineralization.

Lithologies appear to form a conformable homoclinal volcano-stratigraphic sequence, facing and younging to the north in the project area. Tight to isoclinal folds and local attenuation or boudinage of units along fold limbs appear to occur regionally. Fold axes are subparallel to the regional foliation at N070°E to N095°E.

The Island Gold Mine is stratigraphically positioned in the upper portion of the Wawa Assemblage, on the northern limb of the Goudreau Anticline. This assemblage is mostly composed of felsic volcanic rocks of various facies of tuffs and lavas.

Quartz veins commonly bear visible gold in the form of aggregates, disseminated fine grains or along chlorite-sericite slickensides within the veins. The degree of veining appears to change at depth, transitioning from a stringer style quartz-carbonate vein on scales between millimeter to larger scale veins which can be over 4 metres in width.

The Island Gold deposit is composed of multiple, stacked, south dipping lenses. The mineralized corridor expands from 50 m wide in the upper levels to over 150 m wide at depth. The zone’s dip varies from sub-vertical to vertical from -50° to -90° south. Locally, north dip reversals occur but are not common. Rare instances of offset or folding have been seen. Around the 400 metre level there is a shallow dipping southern inflection of the mineralized zones. It is not yet clear if this inflection is related to a fault, a shear zone, or a fold. This inflection point is the division of what is locally referred to as the Upper Island Gold Mine and the Lower Island Gold Mine.

The Island Gold Mine is an Archean orogenic lode gold deposit. It is a structurally hosted quartzcarbonate vein system situated within the Goudreau Lake Deformation Zone (GLDZ), a major regional brittle-ductile structure. The host terrane is a sequence of felsic to intermediate volcanic rocks of the Wawa Assemblage which are in the greenschist metamorphic range as is common for this type of deposit. High strain zones associated with the GLDZ have the tendency to develop at variable scales along lithologic unit contacts where complex geology and related competency contrasts can control stress patterns and facilitate shearing and the consequent development of dilatancy zones and concomitant quartz carbonate vein formation. It is generally accepted that these Archean orogenic lode gold deposits are related to compressional and transpressional tectonics and the associated metamorphic dewatering and devolatization of magma processes from which the gold bearing fluids are derived.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Required Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Milling equipment has not been reported.

Processing

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Commodity Production

CommodityUnitsAvg. AnnualLOM
Gold koz 2874,460
All production numbers are expressed as metal in doré.

Operational metrics

Metrics
Daily ore mining rate  ....  Subscribe
Waste tonnes, LOM  ....  Subscribe
Ore tonnes mined, LOM  ....  Subscribe
Total tonnes mined, LOM  ....  Subscribe
Tonnes milled, LOM  ....  Subscribe
* According to 2022 study.

Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Jun 26, 2022
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 13, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 13, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 23, 2025

Workforce

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