Officials said all of the mine's equipment has been delivered to the site and its offices are established and ready. Crews are now performing blasthole drilling ahead of first blast to come this week.

All ore from Red Dog will be processed at the Sunrise Dam gold mine treatment plant under the terms of an ore purchase deal with AngloGold Ashanti Australia.

Red Dog, first discovered in 1984 and now 100% owned by Matsa, neighbours the company's Fortitude, Red October and Second Fortune gold operations.

The single pit will be mined by a contractor and will employ drilling and blasting to produce 26,300oz from its 368,000t resource estimate (2.2g per tonne grading).