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Overview Construction of the Seabee Mine began in 1990. The Company's Central Milling Facility was completed in late 1991 with gold production commencing in December of that year. The Seabee Gold Operation hosts permanent facilities to support all mining operations and personnel. Power is supplied by line from Saskatchewan Power Corporation’s provincial power grid. During 2009, the Company completed the construction of the power line extension from the main camp to the Santoy 8 project, alongside its all-weather road. The Seabee Operation employs approximately 360 workers of whom approximately 160 are on site at any given time, subject to seasonal adjustments. Approximately 195 persons are employed in the mill, surface maintenance, electrical, catering, surface, diamond drilling and technical services areas, on a two week-in and two week-out rotation. The remaining 165 people are employed in the underground operations. Camp facilities on site are capable of accommodating 189 people and are supported by a full complement of dining and recreation facilities. Mining Process The Company primarily utilizes long-hole mining methods to extract its ore bodies at the Seabee and Santoy Mines. The long-hole mining method is employed in steeply dipping narrow orebodies. Avoca long hole mining aims to maximize the known resource and extract the orebody from the bottom up. Ore is blasted at one end of an open stope while dry waste rock fill is added to the other end to limit the length of the exposed wall in order to control wall failure. The zones currently being mined are accessed by a ramp to the 1,100 metre level at Seabee and 150 metre level at Santoy. Mining efforts are currently being focused on the 2b, 2c, 8a, 8b and 8f zones. The shaft and hoisting facility, commissioned in the fourth quarter of 1997 (with an extension commissioned in November 2003), provides ore and waste transport to surface. As much as 850 tonnes per day of ore and waste are moved to the ore and waste pass system and hoisted to surface with the ore then conveyed to the mill. Milling Process The mill process consists of a three stage crushing circuit, a three stage grinding circuit, followed by cyanide leaching. The leached gold is collected in a carbon-in-pulp circuit, stripped using mild caustic and collected on stainless steel mesh cathodes by electrowinning. The product from electrowinning is refined into dore bars in a bullion furnace.
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