http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/
Agnico Eagle Mines hosted a site visit in late June to its advanced-stage Meliadine gold project in Nunavut, which is expected to start production in the second quarter of 2019 — about three months sooner than initially planned.
Meliadine is Agnico’s largest gold deposit in terms of resources (3.1 million measured and indicated ounces and 2.7 million inferred ounces) and is expected to produce about 170,000 oz. gold in 2019 and about 385,000 oz. gold in 2020.
The high-grade project, 25 km from Rankin Inlet near the western shore of Hudson Bay, is part of a strategic operating platform that the gold miner is building in Nunavut, where its Meadowbank mine, 300 km west of Hudson Bay, is expected to produce 220,000 oz. gold this year, and where it is also developing Amaruq, a satellite deposit 50 km northwest of Meadowbank.
Sean Boyd, Agnico’s vice-chairman and CEO and The Northern Miner’s Mining Person of the Year for 2017, spoke with senior staff writer Trish Saywell during the tour about the company’s northern business strategy and the importance of developing the region.
The Northern Miner: Construction at Meliadine is on budget and a little ahead of schedule. What’s the secret?
Sean Boyd: A lot of that was to do with solid preparation. We were pretty comfortable and confident that we were going to go ahead and build this mine, and what we did, even with the volatility in the gold price, was we kept the underground development going. And that was critical to allow us to open up the deposit, extract two bulk samples, get confident with the orebody, and allow it to grow.
For the rest of this interview: http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/news/interview-agnicos-sean-boyd-says-meliadine-on-track-to-produce-in-q2-2019/