Artemis achieves record quarterly production in British Columbia as more expansion progresses
TSX-V-listed Artemis Gold has reported record quarterly production in the three months ended June 30, with output totalling 74063 oz from the Blackwater mine, in British Columbia.
This marked a 20% year-on-year increase compared with output in the same quarter last year, driven by higher feed grades, higher gold recoveries and higher mill throughput in the processing plant.
In the year to date, Artemis has produced 135 986 oz of gold from the Blackwater mine, which puts it on track to meet full-year guidance of between 265000 oz and 290000 oz.
The Blackwater plant processed 1.34-million tonnes of ore during the quarter under review, with feed grades having averaged 1.86 g/t gold, while gold recoveries reached a record 92.2% rate as a result of continued process optimisation.
Artemis confirms that more debottlenecking and improvement projects are underway in the crushing, grinding and leach circuits, which will further increase plant throughput rates and improve reliability.
The company is concurrently advancing a Phase 1A expansion project that will increase the design throughput capacity of the existing process plant by 33% to eight-million tonnes a year. The expansions will be done before the end of the year.
Artemis is also advancing the Expanded Phase 2 project, which will increase yearly throughput to 21-million tonnes a year before the end of 2028 by adding a second, larger processing train to the existing facility.
All these projects combined will more than triple Artemis' current processing capacity at Blackwater and ultimately increase gold production to more than 500000 oz/y.
