Northern Sun offers custom milling in Timmins.

• Position: NEWS - Northern Sun Mining Corp

Northern Sun Mining Corp. is now offering custom milling at its Redstone Mill in Timmins.

The mill, which has a permit capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day, is designed to operate two separate circuits, each at 800 tonnes per day, allowing it to simultaneously mill different metals.

With the price of construction associated with a new mill costing upwards of $50 to $70 million, paying for custom milling can offer big savings, said David Rigg, Northern Sun's president and CEO, who estimated companies going this route could save 40 to 50 per cent of capital cost of a project.

"What it does is it allows smaller projects to proceed, which means more jobs for the Timmins area, and it gives an opportunity for mining companies that have a small resource to actually go and mine it," he said.

Northern Sun currently has a contract in place with Wallbridge Mining to mill ore from its copper-nickel-PGM Broken Hammer deposit in Sudbury. Milling is expected to start at the end of June and will last over a 12-month period.

"They're shipping ore all the way from Sudbury up to our mill where we can get much better platinum, palladium, PGM and gold recoveries than they can get down in Sudbury, and it actually pays for the shipping distances," Rigg said.

The company is actively seeking interest from other companies that need milling services.

Using profits from the Redstone Mill will then support Northern Sun's exploration projects. The company is currently working on the acquisition of Snow Lake mine in Manitoba, located an eight-hour drive from Winnipeg. Rigg said the company is hoping Snow Lake will become Northern Sun's first true gold operation.

The mine, which operated for a period in the 1950s and 1960s and again in the late 1990s, has produced 1.4 million ounces to date and there are currently 1 million ounces on the property. Rigg said it should take the company about 18 months to ramp up to full production.

Northern Sun also retains the Hart...