Red Lake developer to release gold mine plan this year.

Rubicon Minerals is delaying the release of a new preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on its Phoenix Gold Project, near Red Lake, to later in the year.

The Toronto mine developer wants to put more meat on the bone by pushing back the tentative release date from the second quarter to the third quarter in order to incorporate all the data from last year's 35,000-tonne trial mining and bulk sampling program.

Their consultants working on the PEA will incorporate all the projected capital and operating costs, all the latest operating metrics, and the economic forecast for the mine.

In a June 25 news release, the company said it believes they can bring the shuttered mine project back into commercial production in a relatively short time. The mine project is located in Bateman Township, northeast of town.

So far, more than 14,000 metres of underground development has been completed, including a shaft down to 730 metres.

The hoist is operational, the electrical substation is ready to go, and upgrades have been done to the 200-person camp, tailings dump and water treatment plant.

Back in the spring, Rubicon released a new mineral estimate for Phoenix, showing the measured and indicated resource jumped 110 per cent to 589,000 ounces compared to 281,000 ounces posted last year.

On the exploration side, Rubicon has more than 10,000 metres of underground drilling in the books as they continue with an infilling program below the 854-metre level, designed to upgrade their inferred mineral counts to the indicated category.

Rubicon reports the results look good with high-grade mineralization at depth --of greater than 10 metres horizontal widths--that could translate to sizeable production stopes and...