This is a copy of the question I emailed to EAG back on April 25. Rhylin Bailie has just recently responded to this question and posted it in the Investor Q&A section of the EAG website:
Following your drilling program in 2014 to expand your inferred gold potential what timelines and milestones do you see lying ahead? What hurdles do you anticipate? & Do you see production before 2016?
Response:
There are a number of milestones that need to be achieved before we can make a production decision. We need to both expand and upgrade the resource. Inferred resources cannot be used for a feasibility study, so we certainly need to convert some of our inferred resources to the indicated category with additional infill drilling. Once the Board feels that we have an adequate resource, we need to start looking at the economics of mining the deposit. Some projects go through a three-step process when considering economics and designing their mine plan: preliminary economic assessment, pre-feasibility study, and then a feasibility study. Some projects go right from PEA to a feasibility study. Once the Board is happy with the feasibility study and has made the decision to proceed to production, the next step would be permitting, which in Quebec is likely a 2-3 year process. Once we've got permits in hand, the next step is construction, which should not be terribly long for this project, but we'd determine the timeline as part of the feasibility study.
We do not anticipate any significant hurdles at Windfall Lake. The project is not close to any communities, so we don't have any significant social issues. We already have an agreement in place and a strong relationship with our Cree First Nation partners. We are not aware of any signficant environmental issues. Both social and environmental issues would be examined in more detail as we moved through the PEA and feasibility study. Windfall Lake is a fairly simple project compared to many of the other gold mines in North America. We have year-round access by roads that were sufficient for logging trucks, and should therefore be sufficient for the majority of mining vehicles. The land is flat, so we don't need to build any tunnels or use helicopter support. The biggest question at Windfall Lake is whether we'd build a mill on site, and how we would bring power to the site, since the closer power source is approximately 100km away.
