With the pouring of its first gold at Sleeping Giant, Maudore transitioned from an exploration company into a gold producer. The company also reported that it has renamed the former NAP Quebec Mines operations as Aurbec Mines Inc.

Maudore Chairman and CEO Kevin Tomlinson said, “Our transformation from a junior exploration company to a well-capitalized gold producer was accomplished in an astonishingly quick timeframe in one of the most difficult financing environments that the gold sector has experienced in recent memory. We are quite encour-aged by the potential cash flow from our newly acquired assets and with the excellent platform we now have to grow the company.”

Maudore has more than 23 explo-ration projects that span some 120 km and cover an area of 1,440 km2 of the Northern Volcanic Zone of the Abitibi greenstone belt. The Sleeping Giant processing facility is located within trucking distance of some of the key projects.

Subsequent to pouring its first gold at Sleeping Giant, on May 6, Maudore reported completion of an updated min-eral resources estimate for the Vezza gold deposit. Measured and indicated resources in the deposit’s Contact Zone are now estimated at 1.24 million mt grading 6.5 g/mt gold for a total of 261,110 oz of gold.

Vezza trial mining and trucking of rock to the Sleeping Giant processing facility is ongoing. Alimak longhole mining with horizontal drilling has been replaced by sublevel narrow-vein long-hole methods, which have reduced wallrock dilution. Mine staff is updating the mine plan to incorporate the cur-rent resources estimate.