Status
The Pahtavaara mine is currently on care and maintenance and closure planning has commenced. Historical resources for Pahtavaara will not be included in upcoming National Instrument 43-101 economic studies for Ikkari.
Mine geology
Pahtavaara gold mine is hosted by the predominantly pyroclastic, voluminous ultramafic volcanics of the Sattasvaara komatiite complex, part of the 2.05Ga Savukoski group (Mutanen, 1997). Least altered komatiites consist of a talc-chlorite assemblage resulting from regional greenschist facies metamorphism. Extrusive ultramafics, including pillow lavas and hyaloclastites are intercalated with minor sedimentary lenses, comprising predominantly carbonaceous shales and coarse, crystalline actinolite-tremolite assemblages believed to be the alteration product of a more pyroxenitic volcanic phase.
Gold at Pahtavaara was previously mined from two main zones Samurai and DB with the Karoliina and Lansi zones discovered towards the end of the last period of ownership in 2013. Recent work by Rupert has generated three new targets at Harpoon, NFE and T-Vein.
Infrastructure
High voltage electrical power is transmitted directly via the main line located 5 km south of the mine. Mine access is by road.
Surface infrastructure at the Pahtavaara mine incudes a heavy vehicle workshop, administration building, two core sheds and a processing plant.
Mining
In the first five years of operation over 2 million tonnes of ore was mined from three open pits but from 2006 to 2014 mining was from underground with ramp access.
There has been some 35km of underground 5m x 5m tunnelling developed since operations commenced. Mining was previously undertaken by contractor using long hole stoping methods
Processing
Pahtavaara has a working mill with capacity of over 1400tpd. It has a track record of extremely low processing costs due to low power costs and a simple flow sheet comprising a primary crusher, autogenous mill, cyclones, shaking tables, spirals and flash flotation. There is a permitted tailings facility with multiple years of existing capacity and potential to be expanded.
