TSX-V-listed West Red Lake Gold Mines has provided an update on activities at the Madsen mine, in Ontario, as the company advances towards its goal of a targeted restart in 2025.

Since acquiring the Madsen mine project last year, the company has completed a site-wide operational assessment to make informed decisions about what surface and underground upgrades will underpin a sustainable mining operation.

“I have led teams through many mine builds and each build reinforced the lesson that operational readiness is essential to a successful mine startup,” said president and CEO Shane Williams.

“Operational readiness spans the entirety of a mine, from infill drilling to stope and development planning to budgeting to maintenance and procurement systems to strong staffing and an active safety culture and much more.

“Since the Madsen mine was acquired with an abundance of infrastructure, our focus has been understanding what to add to increase efficiency and optionality. The team is doing impressive work on these key deliverables and I am pleased to provide this update on the work under way at site.”

Regarding drilling, West Red Lake reported that it had been drilling definition holes in the Austin, South Austin, and McVeigh resource areas since October last year, with more than 40 000 m completed to date.

The company noted that definition drilling was fundamental to the restart plan, with tightly spaced definition drill holes informing an accurate geologic model.

Further, a tailings dam lift project got under way in early August. The firm explained that increasing the dam height by 4 m would create enough additional tailings capacity for ten years of operation, assuming a milling rate of 800 t/d.

Progress on the tailings storage facility dam lift had been excellent, West Red Lake said, with 60% of the work completed and the project tracking ahead of schedule and under budget.

Reporting on progress regarding a 1 200-m haulage way to connect the East and West ramps of the underground mine, the company said that the connection drift was about 5% complete. The project would be completed in February next year.

West Red Lake has also reached a procurement deal with Powerscreen Canada, a dealer for Terex, for the purchase of a primary crusher, with delivery expected next month.

Meanwhile, West Red Lake is making progress with the workforce accommodation and with employing staff for the mine. In the last three months, the Madsen mine’s workforce had grown by 48 people with several leadership positions filled.