Production was scheduled to have started in mid-November on a tailings retreatment project in Kirkland Lake, Ont. Gold mine tailings have been deposited in nine separate tailings areas here over the past 40 years. In 1983, Eastmaque acquired an interest in two of these areas: the Toburn tailings and the Kirkland Lake tailings. Both acquisitions were purchased with cash, which will be paid through instalments from production revenues. More recently, Eastmaque paid $90,000 for the the Kirland Lake Gold Mine tailings, known locally as the “Italian Dumps.” After a 2-year sampling program and extensive metallurgical testing by Lakefield Research under the direction of George Shadford, a consulting engineer in Toronto, Eastmaque decided in September, 1986, to go ahead with production.
Kutz Klingmann, president of Vancouver-based Eastmaque Gold Mines, says the big question this winter will be how successfully tailings can be dredged from the lakes in — 40 degrees C weather.
Eastmaque has purchased an 8-inch Stacey dredge from Kenner Marine of Laplace, La., to reclaim tailings from as deep as 45 ft below the lake. Unlike similar tailings projects in Timmins, Ont., and Yellowknife, N.W.T., Eastmaque plans to operate this one on a year-round basis.
In case the company is unable to do this, mill equipment has been selected so that the annual design tonnage can be processed in only nine months instead of 12.
Some 735,000 tons of old mill tailings grading as low as 0.041 oz gold per ton should be processed each year for the next nine years. Annual production should reach 20,000 oz of the yellow metal, and recoveries are expected to be 67%. A simple grinding and flotation mill, designed by Leslie Engineering of Toronto, was nearing completion at the time of this writing.
The treated tailings will initially be returned to the North Arm of Kirkland Lake. Later, it will be dumped into the tailings lake.
Gold will be recovered in a flotation concentrate (grading about 1 oz gold per ton), which will be trucked 55 miles to the Horne Smelter in Noranda, Que. Kirkland Lake Tailings Notebook Location: ……. Kirkland Lake, Ont. Major owner: ……. Eastmaque Gold Mines Commodity: ……. gold in a flotation concentrate Production decision: ……. Sept 8, 1986 Start-up: ……. mid-November, 1987 Capital costs: ……. $7.4 million Operating costs: ……. $246(US) per oz (projected) Reserves: ……. 6.7 million tons at 0.041 oz gold per ton Mining method: ……. dredge Production rate: ……. 735,000 tons per year to produce 20,000 oz Major contractors: ……. Leslie Engineering, Helmer Peterson Construction, John Clark Building Enterprises, GNP Welding Status: ……. production
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