Wet commissioning of the Young-Davidson mill was essentially complete on March 22, at which time ore was intro-duced into the circuit and ore commission-ing began. During the following three weeks, the mill moved to 24-hour continu-ous operation, and mill throughput began to ramp-up steadily. Between April 19 and April 29, the mill averaged about 5,000 mt/d, well above the budgeted throughput rate for the month, and a number of days saw throughputs near the 2012 design capacity of 6,000 mt/d.

As of April 29, 963,000 mt (approxi-mately six months ore supply) had been stockpiled ahead of the mill for processing. Current estimates are call for production of 65,000 to 75,000 oz of gold during 2012, 135,000 to 155,000 oz during 2013, and 165,000 to 190,000 oz during 2014, with an ultimate target of 250,000 oz by 2016. Young-Davidson’s proven and probable reserves at year-end 2011 totaled 3.8 mil-lion oz of gold in 46.6 million mt grading 2.56 g/mt gold.

The mine is located near the town of Matachewan, about 60 km west of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. The property consists of con-tiguous mineral leases and claims totaling 11,000 acres and is situated on the site of two past producing mines.