Argonaut Gold has cashed up with $126.5 million to advance its Magino Mine project near Dubreuilville.
The Toronto-based miner announced July 23 it closed a bought deal financing arrangement to move Magino forward through a public offering more than 49 million shares.
The gold property is 14 kilometres outside of the Dubreuilville and 195 kilometres north of Sault Ste. Marie.
It's the Toronto-based miner's only Canadian asset. The company operates three mines in Mexico and one in Nevada.
The proposed open-pit mine is now in the permitting stage and cleared a regulatory milestone in June. Federal and provincial environmental assessment approvals were received last year.
The company was expected to make a construction decision by the middle of this year. Since acquiring the project from Prodigy Gold in 2012, Argonaut has indicated it wouldn't mind entertaining a joint-venture development partner.
The initial construction cost was pegged at US$321 million in 2017.
So far, the 2,200-hectare property contains an estimated measured and indicated 4.2 million ounces of gold with an average grade of 0.91 grams per tonne. Ongoing exploration has intersected higher grade gold at depth.
A positive feasibility study released in 2017 expects Magino to produce 115,700 ounces of gold over a 17-year mine life.
The property contains a former underground mine that experienced sporadic production over the decades beginning after the First World War, yielding 114,319 ounces of gold at 4.43 grams per tonne.
