The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.
TIMMINS – Greg Romain’s involvement with Gowest Gold reconnects him with the city he was born and raised in. The Timmins native, who still has close family here, is the president and chief executive of the company which owns the Frankfield deposit which is about 15 kilometres northeast of the Kidd Creek mine.
Last week, Gowest announced it had signed a “non-binding letter of intent” to process its ore and produce high-grade gold concentrate at Glencore Xstrata’s metallurgical site. The deal is expected to be finalized later this year.
“They have allowed us to come in and use that line which is the old Montcalm circuit,” Romain told The Daily Press. He said there is about $10 million in work and installations required to convert the line for gold ore processing.
The upshot is that it eliminates the need to build a new facility. As a result, Gowest can begin full production two or three years earlier than originally planned. Gowest is looking at starting commercial production in 2015. “If we were doing this from scratch, you’d be talking 2018,” said Romain.
Oddly enough, Romain worked at the very same Kidd metallurgical site for about six or seven summers when he was a student. He worked primarily in the zinc plant, back when it was owned by Texas Gulf.
Romain left Timmins in the late 1980s and worked for several different companies after graduating from the chemical engineering technology program at what was then known as Ryerson Polytechnic Institute.
He later got involved with Gowest through his father-in-law who founded the company.
Gowest is expected to have a relatively small underground mining operation, directly employing about 50 people. Its anticipated mine life is 10 years.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.timminspress.com/2013/06/02/gowest-looks-to-employ-50-at-new-mine