Midway Gold Updates Nevada Pan Project Mine Progress

Midway Gold, the Denver, Colorado based mining and exploration company provided an update for its Pan Project mine this week.

The mine, located about 35km from Eureka, Nevada is on track to complete its first pour by year's end.

Midway announced that the mine is expected to be profitable even at current costs and pricing.

Nevada is the United States' leading producer of gold and accounts for nearly 2/3 of all U.S. gold output. That makes Nevada the 4th largest gold producer in the world, behind China, Russia, and Australia.

When Midway acquired the project in 2007, the region had already seen a large amount of exploration but for market reasons, the Pan Project had not yet been mined.

The company drew up a mining plan at the end of 2011 that showed strong confidence in the resource base and allowed the company to finance more feasibility studies.

Part of Midway's success with the Pan Project will have to be attributed to the recent hiring of Kenneth Brunk, former executive with Newmont Mining. Brunk brought with him his experience with mining in Nevada but more importantly his expertise with the relatively new mining process of heap-leaching.

Heap-leaching has had a major impact on mining over the past few decades and Newmont was the first mining company to begin the technique on a commercial scale. The process is cheaper than traditional mining processes and does not require a mill, which allows for lower plant facility costs.

The original budget for Pan was estimated at 99 million dollars but updated estimates put the overall cost at only 75 million dollars.