The Candelones Project will employ conventional truck-and-shovel open pit mining techniques. The operations will be fully undertaken by a contractor, with no drilling and blasting activities involved.
The Candelones Oxide Deposit is mined with two pits. The Main Pit, aligned north-west to south-east, measures 650 m along strike and 175 m in width. The Secondary Pit, which is oriented approximately north-south, is 240 m long and 150 m wide. Both pits have an average depth of 30 m.
The Main Pit design assumes access to the highest point in elevation at the north. The Secondary Pit design assumes access in the centre from the west. This provides access to the pushbacks and to shorten haul distances to the leach pad and waste dump from both pits.
No crusher will be utilized over the life of the mine; however, the coarser material will be handled by a ripping process.
The pit will be mined over a period of 39 months (3.3 years) at an average rate of 5,000 t/d.
Ore material will be sent to either the heap leach facility or an ore stockpile; the stockpile will serve as complement to feed the leach pad during the period of low production due to the rainy season. Waste material will be sent to the waste dump storage (WDS) located southeast of the pit.
The mining of the pit will be divided into six pushbacks during the 3.3 years of operation and be executed in 5 m benches.
Mining of the Candelones oxide miner ........
