36 www. bus- ex. com JANUARY 10

Detour Gold Corporation JANUARY 10 www. bus- ex. com 37 gold prices, if you ask me when was the best time in my career to build a gold mine, I would say that right now is the best time," Panneton says. " There is skilled labor and available equipment out there, and the price of gold is at an all- time high." By early 2010, Detour Gold hopes to be in a position to get a green light to start construction of the project. From the time the asset was acquired, that would be a 3 ½ - year time frame to construction- extremely fast by industry standards, notes Panneton. " A lot of projects don't progress nearly that quickly, and certainly projects of this scope almost never come on line that fast." The company does not foresee any issues with the permitting process, as the site has a " brownfield" status ( it has been previously disturbed by mining). Most of the planned infrastructure, along with the proposed open pit, is located on a mining lease, which will save time in getting the permits. An existing tailings facility is permitted and can be used in the first year of the operation prior to expansion. Detour Gold, meanwhile, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the local Moose Cree First Nation and the Taykwa Tagamou Nation; one with the Wahgoshig First Nation is pending. During 2010, the company will negotiate a more formal agreement ( impact benefit agreement) outlining contributions to these communities as well as employment training and commitment at the mine, which is expected to employ around 350 people. The mine is expected to create over 1,000 indirect jobs, which is highly significant for the economy of northern Ontario. Detour Gold recently announced that it had appointed Barclays Capital to be lead arranger for a debt financing. Prior to the announcement, the company completed a bought deal offering, raising C$ 275 million. The company now has about C$ 320 million in the bank. According to a pre- feasibility study conducted for Detour Gold by Met- Chem Canada and released in the fall of 2009, total start- up costs for the mine are pegged at around US$ 844 million. There are only a handful of deposits in the world capable of producing 600,000 ounces of gold annually with investments of approximately C$ 1 billion, and Detour Lake is one of them. " Gold remains a precious and valuable metal, and the supply is decreasing worldwide," Panneton says. " I personally believe that gold prices could continue to escalate over the next year or two. The timing is right for us, and we hope to be able to say a year from now that we are well under way on construction of one of the largest gold mines in Canada." " It's all about the quality of the asset," Panneton says. " When we first looked at it, we saw that the potential was there to find a lot more than the existing 1 million ounces near the surface. I personally thought that we could easily define 5 million ounces with bulk mining open- pit potential." After 330,000 meters of drilling by the company, the size of the deposit at Detour Lake has exceeded even the company's own initial expectations. The site had been previously mined from 1983 to 1999, mainly by Placer Dome, producing 1.8 million ounces of gold, and shut down when it no longer became economical under then- depressed gold prices. Now Detour Lake has an open- pit mineral reserve of 8.8 million ounces of gold, within a global resource of 22 million ounces of gold. With the largest undeveloped gold reserve in Canada, the company is poised to begin construction on the mine in 2010. A recently completed pre- feasibility study showed the potential for 14.5 years of mine life at a mill throughput rate of 45,000 metric tons per day. Average gold production is expected to be around 560,000 ounces annually at a total cash operating cost of US$ 420 per ounce. To date, Detour has spent about C$ 70 million, most of those expenditures going into drilling as well as engineering and permitting work. If construction work begins in 2010, the mine could be in operation by the end of 2012. Once construction is completed, the company believes it can operate the mine at a cost- effective level, thanks in part to the open- pit approach it hopes to utilize, the proximity to existing infrastructure, and other factors. The fact that hydroelectric power is close by and available is a major plus for the project in terms of cost savings. The low- cost hydroelectric power will be used as an energy source for the SAG [ semi- autogenous grinding] and ball mills and other mine machinery. The mine site is within 180 kilometers of a hydroelectric dam, Panneton notes, which not only boosts the mine's profile but also aids in its sustainability. " If you put this same project in Nevada [ i. e., if the project were operating with diesel generators], the operating costs would go up dramatically just because of the power costs." Construction of the mine, meanwhile, could not come at a better time. With much of Canada's major mine- building boom of recent years- fueled by widespread development in the oil sands region- having cooled considerably, the slowdown has helped put a strong supply of mining talent and heavy equipment on the market. " When you combine all that with the current rise in