The Kiniero Gold Project deposits are suitable to conventional open pit mining methods including drilling, blasting, trucks and shovels in order to supply ore to the 3 Mtpa processing plant. Benches of 5m will be blasted where required and excavated in 2.5m flitches in order to avoid, as much as practical, ore loss and dilution during the mining process.
All mining services will be contracted out, including:
• RC drilling for grade control and drill and blast;
• “down the hole” blasting services, which will include both the delivery of bulk explosives “down the hole” and the supply of blasting accessories;
• load and haul services from the pits to the stockpiles;
• rehandling from the stockpiles to the ROM.
Blasting
Blasting will be undertaken using industry standard storage, transport and charging practices for a modern mining operation, subject to all local and national statutory and regulatory requirements. Production drilling and blasting operations will be carried out at 5m benches. Each 5m bench is then excavated in 2.5m flitches to ensure maximum selectivity.
The supply of explosives and blasting accessories will be contracted out directly to an approved explosives supplier. The explosives contractor will provide, in addition to the supply of primary explosives and blasting accessories, mixing equipment and technical blasting advice when required.
An integrated multi-pit mining schedule was developed ........
