A conventional open pit mining operation is proposed for the extraction of mineralized material from the B Zone rare earth element mineral deposit for the Strange Lake Project.
Mining will be undertaken by Quest using its own equipment and workforce. Specialized contractors will be used for the initial site clearing and initial haul road construction in preparation for the mining equipment fleet. Explosives, blasting agents, fuel and other consumables will be sourced from established suppliers.
The Strange Lake Project resources are contained in a single deposit. The open pit and internal phases were designed using Vulcan software, preliminary geotechnical designs, recommended standards for road widths and minimum mining widths based on efficient operation for the size of mining equipment chosen for the project.
The optimized shells were generated with an overall slope of 42o on the north wall and 45o
on the south wall which have been flattened by 3o and 5o, respectively, from the inter ramp angle to account for the access ramps required in the pit design. Pit designs were constrained by a 120-m offset from Lac Brisson which lies to the northwest.
Open pit operations will run 24 h/d and 7 d/w, 270 d/y on a 12-h shift basis. Plant feed material mining and waste stripping operations will be scheduled two shifts per day. Blasting operations will be devoted to day shift only, as well as primary road maintenance.
The pro ........