Page 38 Harte Gold s Sugar Zone mine is located near White River Ontario 80 km east of Barrick s Hemlo Gold camp one of the legend ary camps in Ontario s gold min ing history Hemlo has produced about 30 million oz of gold over its 30 years of operations Nearby are the Island Mine now operated by Alamos Gold 25 mil lion oz produced and W esdome Gold s Eagle River mine The mines are located on the west ern end of the AbitibiGreenstone belt which also includes the T im mins mining area with more than 71 million oz produced in over 100 year of mining The of cial opening for Sugar Zone took place in October 2018 and quite the opening it was with Premier Doug Ford and Greg Rickford Minister of Energy Northern Development and Mines on to hand to mark the occassion with a ribbon cutting ceremony On January 1 2019 Sugar Zone declared full production becoming Ontario s newest operating gold mine As with all new operating mines Harte Gold faced challenges in its f rst couple of months Over the f rst two months of 2019 severe winter conditions temporarily impacted mining activities and ramp up of operations Contractor equip ment failures and manpower issues in January and February caused a temporary slowdown to mining and unprecedented cold weather froze water in the tailings management facility constraining process water supply and mill throughput These issues have since been cor rected and by March the under ground mining and process rates have signif cantly improved The company is achieving plan goals and expects similar performance levels moving forward In April 2019 Harte Gold released a feasibility study that declared re serves to be 890000 oz of gold at 71 gtonne from 9 million tonnes of ore at a net mining dilution of 38 The feasibility study pegged annual production to be 61000 oz over a 14 year mine life that will generate 30 million annually in net free cash f ow at US1300oz gold The mine and mill are operational with no additional construction cap ital expenditures required Costs are well def ned based on contracted rates and operat ing experience The cash cost is US648oz and all in sustaining cost AISC is US851oz The feasibility study conf rms in creases in production to 95000 oz annually can be achieved at reduced cash cost through benef ts of scale The study also found that conver sion of near mine inferred mineral ization will extend mine life and re duce mining development cost per tonne of ore processed The installation of a leach circuit to process f otation concentrate on site will also reduce costs and in crease payable ounces T o bolster its f nancial position ad vanced discussions are underway with Appian and Sprott to ref nance existing facilities with existing and Harte Gold releases 2019 feasability study By Frank Giorno Contd on pg 39 Page 36