The zinc-copper-gold-silver bearing sulphide mineralization identified on the Property exhibits typical characteristics of VMS mineralization.

Mineralization at the Back Forty deposit consists of discrete zones of: 1) zinc or copperrich massive sulphide (±lead), which may contain significant amounts of gold and silver, 2) stockwork stringer and peripheral sulphide, which can be gold, zinc, and copperbearing (±lead/silver), 3) precious metal-only, low-sulphide mineralization, and 4) oxiderich, precious metal-bearing gossan.

The mining operation will use a conventional open pit mining method, off-highway trucks, and hydraulic shovels. The waste rock and mineral resource will be drilled and blasted using typical grade control methods and blasthole sampling.

Underground mining will be carried out using long-hole mining techniques, which includes primary and secondary transverse stopes and longitudinal retreat stopes. This method provides the optimal level of flexibility within an overall extraction concept, and allows modifications to the panel sizes, as needed, to best suit the geometry of the Back Forty deposit.

In transverse long-hole stoping, cross-cuts are perpendicular to the strike of the deposit. Mineralized material is mucked from under-cut access drifts which extend from the footwall access drift to and through the deposit. In a vertically continuous deposit the overcut cross-cuts are repurposed as under-cuts as mining progress moves upward. To increase the number of available stopes the deposit is divided into primary, secondary and tertiary stopes that are sequence to prevent ground falls and increase the production rate. The method allows for mining of thick continuous deposits at a high production rates.

In longitudinal retreat mining development drifting is primarily inside the deposit itself with minimal cross-cuts from the footwall access drift. Mineralized material is mucked from under-cut drifts that are also inside the deposit. The method allows for mining of thin deposits where the geometry of the deposit requires a mining method that reduces the development lengths to access the deposit. The result is a mining method that allows for bulk mining while minimizing waste development and reduction of waste develop.

The oxide and sulphide materials will be processed by agitated tank leach and flotation as the primary process methods. Two distinct plant sections that contain separate ball mills and other processing equipments will be constructed for this purpose. Both materials will be crushed by the same crushing circuit in separate campaigns and stockpiled separately for downstream processing.

It is understood that during the underground years there will be substantial drop in mill throughput for both oxides and sulphides materials. In order to minimize the operating costs, a campaigning approach is conceptually proposed for the underground years. This means only one plant (either leach or flotation) will be operational at a time. A hypothetical scenario would be the processing of sulphides and oxides for approximately 90% and 10% of the available time.

The ROM mineralized oxide and sulphide material will be transported by haul trucks to a stockpile receiving area. In the receiving area, the material will either be fed directly into the primary crusher feed hopper or onto separate stockpiles, by mineralization type for blending (oxide with oxide, sulphide with sulphide). Each mineralization type fed in the stockpiles is independently fed with a front-end loader into the three-stage crushing circuit and crushed to less than 9.5 mm. The fine material products will be stored on separate dedicated reclaim stockpiles.

The oxide material, containing gold and silver, will be processed in an agitated cyanide leach. The resulting leach solution, containing the dissolved gold and silver, is washed from the tailings in a CCD system. A Merrill-Crowe process then removes the gold and silver using zinc precipitation and the resulting concentrate is refined in a tilt-pour furnace to produce a gold-silver alloy doré product.

The oxide plant has a capacity to leach about 300,000 t of oxide material per year during full production with an average annual production of 29,729 troy oz gold and 160,533 troy oz silver per year.

The sulphide processing plant will have capacity to process approximately 1,575,000 t annually and produce copper, lead and zinc concentrates via selective flotation of the individual minerals from the sulphide material. The copper and lead concentrates will contain gold and silver credits while zinc concentrate will not contain any credits.