1) As mentioned before, it had sounded to me like they were working on 2 accesses to the North Wall. Based on previous diagrams, it looked to me like the North Wall mineralization was too far to drift over from the Lamaque Flats. I figured if they were drifting over it would be from the Bedard Dyke area, which appeared to be much closer to the zone. Of course, this was before we found out about the big Bedard Dyke delay.
Well, it looks like they might indeed be establishing 2 accesses to the North Wall and they are actually drifting over from the Lamaque Flats (and not the Bedard Dyke):
``Access ramp from Lamaque Flats currently being driven to North Wall``
``collaring of North Wall portal from pit commenced``
It`s good that they are able to drift over from the Lamaque Flats as that area is far more established, naturally.
2) Infill drilling has been going on for the past month or two which will allow them to identify blocks to be mined. Pg 18 of the presentation: ``mineralization definition drilling commenced``.
3) ``Developed to 2nd level as at September 2010``
4) It looks to me like they have ramped past the top sub-level and the second sub-level. I think that includes most of the mineralization for the upper portion of the dyke. There is a chance that might be good enough ramp down for the first long-hole stope (unless they feel they need to wait for the ramp to be developed further down first in order to avoid over congestion from multiple heavy jobs that requires use of the ramp). If they can now move forward with stope area preparation then they probably now need to do a bunch more work down there, such as the ``undercut``, the ``loading crosscut``, the ``transport drift``, etc. It sounds like they are getting closer to production though. Hopefully the long-hole stoping permit will be arriving soon (the technical sign off was the important hurdle - which we apparently have). Hopefully they will be in a position to launch Bedard Dyke in late October or early November.
5) A vast mid section of the BD still to be explored, as well, the ore body is open to the west and at depth. We shouldn`t forget about a potential high grade shear zone nearby to the north that was historically mined at depth. They will see if it flows up to the BD level of the mine. They will also try to see if some of the north dippers intersect with the flats that go through the BD. North dippers were prominent in this area of the pit in the past.
6) Lamaque Flats Zone: ``Production from and development to 7 stope complexes as at September 2010``
7) Production commencement:
Lamaque Flats - ``Q1 2010``
Bedard Dyke - ``Q4 2010``
North Wall - ``Q1 2011``
2 comments:
good works and good luck BUT
what about silica
what do you mean silica
tell me
I have more thoughts about the North Wall.
The North Wall is a zone. The North Wall Dyke is likely the dominating ore type within that zone, but nonetheless the North Wall zone has all 4 Sigma ore types (Dykes, Shears, North Dippers and Flats).
I think the North Wall Dyke is what is located to the centre-west side on the North Wall (closest to the Bedard Dyke). It`s possible that the North Wall flats is the mineralization that is located to northeast of the North Wall zone (but not entirely sure). I had previously discussed the note below on the blog a couple of months ago. It was taken from the Jan`09 study.
``The Lamaque Mine is currently permitted for 1,200 tonnes per day production which also includes the Northeast portion of the North Wall zone.``
The fact that the Northeast portion of the North Wall zone was already permitted would suggest to me that long-hole stoping will not be performed in that particular area. It also sounds like this is the North Wall area that they are drifting over to from the Lamaque Flats.
Also based on the Jan`09 study, it looks like the position for the North Wall portal is the mid point of the North Wall, near the right part of North Wall Dyke. I don`t know if they have changed the location of the portal since that Jan`09 study.
My guess is that they are intending to perform long-hole stoping on the North Wall Dyke located in the central and west side of the North Wall and then transport the ore via the new North Wall decline located in the middle part of the North Wall open pit area. Simultaneously, (my guess is) they are intending to mine the non-long-hole mineralization located northeast on the North Wall (potentially North Wall Flats) and transport the ore through the Lamaque Flats/Lamaque decline, then through the haulage drift to the pit.
If the northeast North Wall structure is similar to the structure in the Lamaque Flats then perhaps they can use the efficient low-profile equipment in there also.
If they can have success getting to the northeast North Wall ore in this manner then it will take a lot of pressure off development of the North Wall decline and long-hole mining of the North Wall Dyke. It would give us a much better chance of getting ore flow from the North Wall starting around January. The Northeast area stopes should be much easier to develop (like the Lamaque Flats) relative to bringing a long-hole operation into production (as we are finding out with the Bedard Dyke).
Another benefit is having 2 different types of ore sources (and potentially mining methods) in production simultaneously at the north wall. This gives us added diversity and flexibility.
I guess we will have to wait and see how it all truly shakes out.
As a side note, the North Wall mineralization starts below pit level (Bedard Dyke started at the pit wall).
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