Gold: New Gold nears first production at Rainy River

[caption id="attachment_1003718956" align="alignnone" width="562"] New Gold’s Rainy River gold mine under construction, 65 km north of Fort Frances, Ontario. Credit: New Gold.[/caption] New Gold Inc. provided an update on the construction of the company's Rainy River project, located in northwestern Ontario. Both the project schedule and capital cost estimate remain in line with New Gold’s updated plan announced in late January 2017. The company continues to target first gold production in September 2017, and the estimated development capital cost from the beginning of this year to the targeted November 2017 commercial production remains $515 million. “We are pleased with the solid progress we have made at Rainy River over the last five months,” stated Hannes Portmann, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Through the second quarter, our team has both successfully commenced the staged commissioning of our process facility and delivered on our mining plan. As the pit has opened up, our operations team has recently delivered further increases in the mining rate, including several days over 130,000 tonnes per day.” Overall earthworks are over 85% complete and are tracking in line with New Gold’s updated plan. Starter cell rock deliveries are scheduled for completion in late August 2017. Energization of all key site overhead power lines and construction of the tailings pipeline corridor have been completed. All of the key structural components of the process facilities have been finalized and the setting of mechanical equipment and installation of piping, electrical and instrumentation services is close to completion. The primary crusher and conveyor system was successfully commissioned on schedule, and the first crush occurred on May 11, 2017. Commissioning of the ball mill and SAG mill has started and is scheduled to be completed in August 2017. The refining portion of the circuit should be ready to begin commissioning in July 2017. Dry and wet commissioning of the full process circuit is scheduled for August 2017. Project spending at Rainy River during the second quarter is expected to be approximately $170 million, which would bring the total year-to-date project spending to approximately $295 million. The remaining capital cost to the targeted November commercial production is estimated to be approximately $220 million. Of the remaining expenditure, approximately 45% is related to mining and owner’s costs, 45% is related to earthworks, including completion of the starter tailings cell, with the balance of the remaining expenditure related to the completion and commissioning of the process plant. The full release can be read at www.newgold.com.