Page 86 By Kevin V incent The normally quiet highway 144 cor ridor between Sudbury and T immins is expected to get a little livelier in the coming months and potentially for the next two decades as IAMGO LD con tinues to march toward a launch of its Cote Gold Project near Gogama Developments at our Cote Gold Project in northern Ontario including a joint venture with Sumitomo Metal Mining have allowed us to move to wards development with the comple tion of a feasibility study expected in the frst half of 2019 and a potential production start in 2021 said Presi dent and CEO Stephen Letwin in the company s 2017 Annual Report to shareholders The Cote Gold Project is a 7030 joint venture between IAMGOLD and Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd The project hosts estimated mineral reserves of 1961 million tonnes grad ing 094 gt Au for 59 million ounces In the frst quarter 2017 the company received notic e of approval of the project s provincial environm ental as sessment from the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change This follows a previous notifcation received in 2016 from the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change that the project could proceed subject to the conditions liste d in the assessment report and obtaining any required approvals and permits The PreFeasibility Study PFS out lined a potentially economically vi able project that at a 1250 per ounce gold price would generate an esti mated 140 after tax internal rate of return The project would have a 17year mine life producing on aver age 207000 ounces of gold a year at average total cash costs of 605 per ounce produced and allin sustaining costs of 689 per ounce sold A tech nical report summarizing the PFS was fled on SEDAR The company produced a combined 882000 ounces of gold from its 90owned Essakane Mine in Burki na Faso 95owned Rosebel Mine in Suriname and its 100owned W est wood Mine 40km east of Rouyn Noranda Quebec IAMGOLD is yet another company to embrace blockchain technology the underlying web coding and program ming that executes complex digital transactions with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin In late April IAMGOLD announced that it had joined Agnico Eagl e Mines Ltd Wheaton Precious Metals Corp Goldcorp Inc and Sprott Inc in a strategic private placement with T radewind Markets Inc a fnancial technology company that uses block chain to speed up and streaml ine digi tal gold trading Ofcially launched on March 23 2018 the T radewind platform inte grates worldclass exchange technol ogy with a tailored blockchain ap plication V aultChain Gold in order to facilitate the trading settlement and ownership of physical gold The revolutionary new platform securely digitizes vaulted precious metals for the frst time that the compa ny says removes structural technical and fric tional limitations from the physical gold market IAMGOLD will collaborate with T radewind and other investors with the platform to increase the utility of gold and bring new value for produc ers dealers and investors While the platform will initially tar get physical gold dealers in North America new capital will fund the expansion of T radewind and the distribution net work for V aultChain on a global scale W e are deligh ted to be an early inves tor in T radewind and at the forefront of an exciting new application such as V aultChain said Steve Letwin Pres ident and CEO of IAMGOLD By storing and tracking physical gold on the blockchain miners will be able to unlock value by selling directly to the end user using the T radewind platform W e look forward to working with likemind ed peers for the bet terment of the gold mining industry taking control of our own destiny to bring gold into the digital age Be yond the digitiz ation of gold I believe T radewind will continue to create new opportunities for IAMGOLD and the gold industry T radewind was a DisruptMining fnal ist in 2017 the mining innovation ac celerator designed to encourage new ideas generate new opportunities and tackle problems more efciently and to bridge the gap between mining and technology IAMGOLD Cote Gold Pr oject potential pr oduction start 2021