Richmont Mines Announces New Deep Exploration Drilling at Island Gold

Richmont Mines Inc, a Montreal-based mining and exploration company, announced today that it would begin an additional deep exploration program to test part of the plunge projection for the Island Gold deposit near Wawa, Ontario. This operation will be in addition to the currently operating mines and exploration efforts underway or so far announced for 2014.

The new Island Gold exploration will require four diamond drill holes to plunge 4,800 meters at a cost of $500,000.

So far, the Island Gold mine has produced more than 300,000 ounces of gold from 0-400 meters and output for 2014 is expected to reach 40,000 ounces.

In 2011, additional drilling was conducted beneath the existing mine which garnered favorable results and led to expanding the drilling operations in 2012 and even deeper explorations in 2013. These subsequent operations led to doubling revised output estimates from 508,000 inferred ounces at 10.73 g/t to 1.1 million at 9.3 grams per tonne.

The interim CEO Elaine Ellingham stated in a press release, "This new 1.1 million ounce resource under our operating Island Gold Mine came together very quickly. It remains open at depth and along strike, presenting some compelling potential for expanding this resource. These additional exploration drill holes will enable us to test the down plunge potential to the east of our existing resource base at depths of between 800 and 1,000 metres."

Richmont mines currently has 3 mines in operation in Quebec, Ontario, and Newfoundland. Since 1991, Richmont has produced over 1.4 million ounces of gold.