Monarques Gold Corporation (TSXV:MQR, OTCMKTS:MRQRF, FRANKFURT: MR7) announced that production activities at the Beaufor mine will be temporarily suspended as of December 14, 2018. The suspension is primarily due to the low grades of the ore mined at Beaufor in recent quarters, combined with the persistent weakness in the price of gold and difficulties recruiting qualified manpower in the region. As a result, the mine’s workforce will be cut to around ten employees who will be assigned to care and maintenance of the mine and its facilities.
Highlights are as follows:
- Production activities at the Beaufor mine will be temporarily suspended as of December 14, 2018, and the mine will be placed on care and maintenance.
- The corporation will continue its exploration activities at the Beaufor mine in order to increase its gold resource over the longer term, given the many high-grade results obtained since the end of 2017.
- Camflo’s custom milling operations, which reported another consecutive increase in revenues in the fourth quarter of more than 31 percent, will not be affected.
- The corporation will focus its efforts on developing and completing the feasibility study of its core asset, the Wasamac gold deposit, which contains measured and indicated resources of 2,587,900 ounces of gold.
- The corporation has acquired land adjacent to the Wasamac project, with more than 1 kimlometer strategically located along the Trans-Canada Highway and the Ontario Northland Railway.
- Monarques Gold has sold its 2 percent net smelter return royalty in the East Amphi property to Canadian Malartic GP for US$250,000.
Jean-Marc Lacoste, president and CEO, commented:
With the persistent weakness in the gold price and lower-than-expected grades, operations at the Beaufor Mine have been challenging in the last two quarters, a situation that had to be corrected at all costs. Over the coming quarters, we will be looking for ways to improve the mining grade while pursuing our exploration activities, which have generated very promising results. Our goal is to restart the Beaufor Mine as soon as we are able to ensure that our operations will be profitable.
We will also step up our efforts to develop Monarques’ main asset, the Wasamac gold deposit, which, by using the latest technology, has the potential to become a mine. We will soon issue an update on the status of the Wasamac feasibility study, where we are seeing some very encouraging developments. In terms of operations, it is important to underscore that our custom milling operations at the Camflo mill are growing every quarter and are expected to continue contributing positively to our results
