Gerald Panneton (left), president and CEO of Detour Gold, celebrates the first gold
pour at the company’s Detour Lake open-pit mine in Ontario.

Detour Gold began commissioning the first mill production line at Detour Lake in October 2012 and began processing low-grade material and then ore-grade material in January 2013. After near-ly one month of operation, and despite some teething issues, the fundamental parts of the circuits were operating well.

The gold inventory in the CIP and electrowinning circuits was increasing, and, in parallel, electrical and instrumentation work on the second production line was progressing well, with start-up of that line expected in March.

Mining rates have continued to increase and were scheduled to reach 150,000 mt/d during the first quarter of 2013. Currently, the company has a mining fleet of 20 haul trucks and four shovels, which more than meets the requirements of the 2013 mining operation.

Detour Gold’s production guidance for Detour Lake for 2013 remains unchanged at between 350,000 and 400,000 oz of gold at total cash costs of between $800 and $900/oz. Life-of-mine gold production after full commissioning is scheduled to average 657,000 oz/y over a period of 21.5 years.