The coal deposits associated with the Coalspur Coal Projects (Vista Coal Project, Vista Extension and Vista South) are considered to be surface mineable, as defined in the Geological Survey of Canada Paper 88-21 (“GSC 88-21”).

In the Coalspur lease areas, the coal zones occur at depths from sub-outcrop (below the base of the overlying till material) extending down dip to over 250 m deep. The targeted Coal Resources, in terms of deposit type, are therefore defined as surface mineable.

In terms of structure, the target area can be described as being an area with low tectonic disturbance, the only main feature being the eastern monocline, resulting in strata dips of up to 10°. No major faults have been identified within the defined resource blocks notwithstanding major boundary faults. The geology type, as defined by geological complexity, is classed as moderate.

Of the six recognised coal zones encountered within the Coalspur Formation, only the Val d’Or, McLeod, McPherson and Silkstone zones maintain a persistent mineable thickness throughout the Vista lease areas and constitute the majority of the potentially mineable resource. The Arbour Zone is locally present only in the Hinton West Block, while the Mynheer Zone is usually too deep and too thin to be considered surface mineable.

In this current report, contract mining is used instead of an owner’s fleet and terrace mining using truck/shovel has replaced dragline strip mining. The mine plan and schedule relies on timely regulatory approvals for mine development. The project has received certain project approvals for the Phase 1 development and further approvals are awaited. Thereafter, approvals for the Phase 2 development will be sought.

Previous mining studies contemplated a minimum mining thickness of 0.5 m which is slightly lower than the recommended coal thickness as stated in GSC Paper 88-21 of 0.6 m. Given the seam dips and continuity, it is considered that this minimum mineable seam thickness is appropriate for the Vista project. A minimum separable parting assumption of 0.30 m was assumed in the mine plan.

The Vista Mine will be developed in two principal phase pits known as Vista 1 and Vista 2. Vista 1 is further separated into an initial 5 year development scheme and a second final pushback stage. Vista 2 is scheduled to come on stream in 2021 and effectively double the production rate of the project from 6 Mt/a product to 12 Mt/a.

Further mine expansions to the east of Vista 1 and west of Vista 2 are possible but these areas are not included in the current Mineral Reserves of mine production schedule.

The production target is to mine approximately 11 Mt of ROM coal per annum utilising the full capacity of the coal processing plant. All coal is washed to produce two types of products, namely CV5800 and CV5550. The maximum yearly product for CV5800 is 2 Mtpa, so the remaining product will be CV5550. Note that approximately 65 per cent of the Val d’Or seam is of sufficient quality to produce a CV5800 product at a yield of approximately 58.4 per cent. Therefore, 5.3 Mt of Val d’Or seam coal is required to be mined annually with the remaining coal processing plant capacity applied to the McLeod and McPherson seam coal (approximately 5.7 Mtpa).

Approximately 25 per cent of the ROM coal will be rehandled for blending purposes. The blending will be done to produce CV5800 and CV5550 products. Val d’Or, McLeod and McPherson seam faces are always open in addition to the ROM stockpile to enable blending.

Initially, the ROM Stockpile will be maintained at or under approximately 600 kt. However, it will increase up to approximately 2 Mt at one point in the LOM schedule to enable pit floor release in order to optimise the haulage costs while achieving the required coal targets.

The plant arrangement is based on a single 1500 t/h module and includes tailings filters for tailings dewatering.

The arrangement for feeding the preparation plant eliminates feed bias to separate modules through having a single sump with pumps feeding the CPP.

When feeding the raw coal into the plant by a pump it disperses the clays present in the raw feed, but introduces a higher volume of water to the beginning of the circuit with about a 35% solids feed.

The clays also impact on the amount of recycle streams normally designed into a preparation plant with a view to minimising the recycle of these clays.

The plant coarse circuit will consist of two large 1,300mm diameter dense medium cyclones processing the 50 x 1.7mm fraction with medium being drained on separate product and reject drain and rinse screens. The coarse product will be dewatered in four coarse coal centrifuges and the rejects will be transferred directly to the rejects conveyor. The drain and rinse section lengths will need to be carefully designed to achieve the lowest moisture possible with a screen to assist in both reducing the overall product moisture and improving the handleability of the rejects in the cold weather.

The medium recovery circuit will consist of proven counter-current style magnetic separators to concentrate and return the medium to the correct medium circuit.

The undersize of the desliming screen will be pumped through classifying cyclones and then screened over sieve bends to remove the high ash ultrafines and clays prior to the deslimed 1.7 x 0.25 mm fraction being processed in reflux classifiers. The feed will be pumped to the reflux classifiers for density separation with the product then being thickened through cyclones before being dewatered in screenbowl centrifuges. The effluent from the screen bowl centrifuges will be combined with sieve bends undersize and high frequency screen undersize and directed to the tailings thickener to ensure that any clays misplaced to the fines product are not recirculated. The rejects from the reflux classifier units will be dewatered through high frequency screen to reduce the moisture and enable the material to be handled throughout the rejects system.

Tailings from the process will all report to a high-rate thickener and the thickened underflow will be pumped to the tailings filter building. The filters operate independently however the rejects material is batch prepare in groups of 4. The tailings will be dewatered using 16 filters which discharge the dewatered cake material back onto the coarse rejects conveyor which then combined and transports to the rejects bin for pickup by the mining trucks. Water captured from the filter building will be pumped to clarified water tank and re-used in CPP.