Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/937377
64 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 8 D eep in the mountains about 120 km north of Vancouver, near the Town of Goldbridge and next to the commu- nity of Bralorne, British Columbia, are three historic, high-grade gold mines – the 2-km deep Bralorne Mine flanked by the Pioneer and King mines. BC government records show that production at Bralorne began in 1900s and continued until early 1970s. To date, the Bralorne Mine, not includ- ing the adjacent Pioneer and King mines, all of which are part of a huge 5 km by 2 km high-grade vein system, has produced over 2.8 million oz gold and over 706,000 oz silver averaging about 15 g/t gold. Between 1928 and 1971, the three mines in total produced 4.15 million oz gold with similar average head grades. To make a long story short, Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. [ASM-TSX, NYSE AMERICAN] acquired Bralorne Gold Mines Ltd. in 2014 which included a 100 tonne-per-day (tpd) mill. Due to the aging infrastructure, David Wolfin, President and CEO of Avino, asked consulting min- ing engineer Fred Sveinson, P.Eng., to examine the operation which led to the decision to completely revamp and mod- ernize the operation – from mine to mill to tailings to First Nations relationships. In an interview, Sveinson, now Senior Mining Adviser for Avino, explained the company's plan to Resource World. He noted that by 2014, although pro- duction at the Bralorne gold mine was a modest 3,482 oz gold that year, the mine was not making money. The gold price had come down from US $1,900 to about US $1,100/oz. "It was difficult to raise capital for further development and at 100 tonnes per day it was just not enough to be profit- able. By that time, Avino had its Mexican operations making cash flow and was able to acquire Bralorne Gold Mines Ltd., a listed company, and basically resurrect it," said Sveinson. "Initially we looked at the mine, mill and surface infrastructure and were con- sidering 150 tonnes per day instead of 100 tpd. However, the infrastructure and mill were old, in poor shape, and not designed to readily expand to 150 or 200 tonnes per day," he said. Sveinson considered the big picture and realized it made more sense to re- design the mine, construct a larger mill and replace other infrastructure. In addi- tion to known resources, there is excellent potential to find more gold at depth since ore had not bottomed out at 2 km deep. At that depth, mining had become uneconomic and ventilation needed to be upgraded. Under Avino's ownership, some of the underground workings have been refurbished. In October 2016, a NI 43-101 was com- pleted, and the resource study estimated that measured and indicated resources totaled 273,123 tons grading 0.33 oz/ton gold (91,528 oz) plus 363,527 tons of 0.22 oz/ton gold (83,900 oz). "We knew we were going to have to put a fair amount of capital into the mill and change much of the equipment," said Sveinson. "At the same time, we looked at the mine plan and what size of an opera- tion was needed to make it profitable. In the past, they used shrinkage stoping and cut and fill mining methods which are labour intensive." It was decided to go mostly with sub- level, narrow vein, longhole retreat mining and gradually ramp up production from 100 tpd to about 400 tpd. This would be more productive and less costly. It is also a safer mining method as the mining tends to retreat away from previously mined or View of the Bralorne gold mine and mill operations located about 120 km north of Vancouver, British Columbia, where extensive re-furbishing is underway. Photo courtesy Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. Avino Silver & Gold Mines – historic Bralorne gold mine getting complete makeover by Ellsworth Dickson MINING