White River looks golden for mining: Harte Gold eyes mid-2018 mine start.

• Position: NEWS

Harte Gold has hired a Sudbury mine builder to start the underground workings at its Sugar Zone gold deposit near White River.

Technica Mining has signed a second contract with the Toronto junior miner to extend an underground ramp and start development of stopes and vent raises in preparation for full commercial production in the second quarter of 2018.

"We would like to thank Technica Mining and their team of professionals who did an excellent job completing Harte Gold's 70,000-tonne bulk sample with 'zero' lost-time accidents," said Harte Gold president-CEO Stephen Roman in a statement. "This is an outstanding achievement."

Technica was hired in 2015 to extract a 70,000-tonne bulk sample and start construction of surface infrastructure, including collaring the portal.

The last shipment of gold ore from that bulk sample went to Barrick's Hemlo mill on March 24.

In a March 28 news release, Harte said tonnage and grade reconciliation will be completed once Barrick processes the ore. However, the company expects the final results will show a total of 69,112 wet tonnes (67,454 dry tonnes) with an average recovered grade of approximately 8.5 grams per tonne.

The Sugar Zone Property is 60 kilometres east of the Barrick's Hemlo gold complex and is 25 kilometres north of White River off of Highway 17.

The property holds an indicated resource of 1,117,000 tonnes, grading...