The Fenelon Mine Property is located in the northwestern Archean Abitibi Subprovince in the southern Superior Province of the Canadian Shield.

Metamorphic belts like the Abitibi are complex regions where accretion or collision has added to, or thickened, continental crust. Gold-rich deposits can be formed at all stages of orogen evolution, so that evolving metamorphic belts contain diverse gold deposit types that may be juxtaposed or overprint each other.

Two types of gold mineralization have been recognized:
- A wide and generally auriferous sulphide-poor quartz vein stockwork formed in the hanging wall of the SLDZ. The sulphide-poor quartz vein stockworks observed in the hanging wall have subvertical north or south dips and are parallel to a series of east-west trending high-strain zones. These veins form a weak stockwork and are boudinaged and/or folded.
- Gold mineralization that overprints the early auriferous stockwork, principally in the hanging wall of the SLDZ, with a higher sulphide content. The sulphiderich gold mineralization predominantly fills structural sites in deformed quartz veins, fractures and veins crosscutting the foliation fabric, but also in pillow breccias and selvages. The distribution of sulphide-rich mineralization is strongly controlled by the geometry of kinematic orientation (i.e., pyrite and pyrrhotite concentrations have a shallow westerly plunge similar to the plunge of the main flexure zone in the SLDZ at an angle of about 40° in the area of the former open pit, shallowing to approximately 10° further to the west).

The segment is dominated by mafic volcanic rocks, followed by sedimentary and plutonic rocks. It is transected by numerous E-W trending deformation zones located either at the contacts of volcano-sedimentary units and granitoid plutons or crosscutting them. The two major northernmost faults of the Abitibi are the Sunday Lake (SLDZ) and Grasset (GDZ) deformation zones. The GDZ is the equivalent of the South Detour Deformation Zone in Ontario.

The Fenelon Mine Property is covered by 4 to 50 metres of glacial overburden consisting mainly of sandy and gravel outwash material and lesser boulder-rich tills. There are no natural rock outcrops in the area of the Discovery Zone (a.k.a. the Fenelon deposit) where glacial overburden is generally 4 to 8 metres thick. Detailed property-scale geological information is only available for this area, which has been drilled and bedrock exposures created during open pit sampling and underground development work. The correlation between geological information and geophysical maps has contributed to the recognition of certain magnetic units such as gabbroic and ultramafic rocks, low magnetic sedimentary rocks and highly conductive graphitic horizons.

Based on the nature and geometry of the Fenelon deposit, three different mining methods should be employed: long hole, uppers, and drift and fill.

Longhole mining consists of drilling a series of vertical holes in the ore from one level to the other. The ore is then blasted in vertical slices. The ore is retrieved from the bottom drift using remote scoop trams. For every horizontal level (approximately 15 m floor to floor), a primary slot (drop raise) is excavated at the extremity of the stope. Blasting of the stope (which can vary between 5 to 30 m in length) is achieved following a longitudinal retreating fashion. All the broken ore is extracted before another blast is taken to ensure a maximum recovery of ore, should any unplanned caving occur. Once the stope is empty, waste rock is used to refill the opened excavation as non-cemented rock fill. In order to blast the second stope on the same level, once again a drop raise is pulled as a primary opening. The second stope is then blasted, mucked and backfilled. The process is repeated until the entire level is mined out.

The uppers longhole open stope mining method differs slightly from traditional longhole. Although the recovery is generally not as good, it is a preferred method in areas where the excavation of a top sill proves to be uneconomic. The longhole drilling and loading of the holes takes place at the bottom sill. Once again, a primary slot is excavated at the extremity of the stope and blasting is achieved following a longitudinal retreating fashion. The stope is then mucked out after each blast, in order to ensure maximum recovery of the ore.

Concept of the drift and fill mining method which should be used in a few locations in the mine when the geometry of the orebody does not permit the longhole or uppers method.

The mine will be operated by contractors as a 24/7 two-shift operation. This should be maintained during the life of mine.

The results from the testwork done to date in laboratory and during the processing of two bulk samples in commercial plant propose that the preferential way to process the Fenelon ore should be the conventional gold leaching process. For the custom milling processing of this ore, different alternatives exist. The Merrill Crowe, CIL or CIP should normally provide relative equivalent gold recovery. However, no CIL or CIP testwork has been done to date. In the current situation in the Abitibi area, there exist some possibilities for competitive quotations from different processing facilities. The ore is also amenable to flotation, but it could be anticipated that the final gold recovery may be a bit lower than with the cyanide leach. However, this avenue was not optimized at that time. No copper assay in the resources seems to exist so it could be difficult to justify this alternative. For the purpose of this study, it is considered that the ore will be processed at the same facility as the previous two bulk samples. The process facility used was the Camflo Mill located in the Malartic town area and using a Merrill Crowe process.

The Camflo mill circuit could be described as follows:
The crushing circuit begins with a 36 x 48 inch jaw crusher and a primary standard 4½ foot cone crusher in an open circuit. The ore from the primary crusher is stored in a 700-tonne primary coarse ore bin. The secondary crushing is done using a primary standard 4½ foot cone crusher in an open circuit. The product from the primary crusher feeds the secondary 4½ foot short head cone crusher in a closed circuit with a screen with ¾ x ¾ inch openings. The crushing capacity is approximately 125tph. The ¾-inch product is sent to the three ore storage bins of 550, 590 and 680 tonnes, respectively, for a total capacity of 1820 tonnes.

The ore is fed from ore storage to the grinding circuit at a rate of 40-45 tph. The primary grinding is achieved with an 8’ x 12’ rod mill (450 hp) operated in an open circuit. The secondary grinding is provided by a closed circuit configuration having two ball mills: one 8’ x 15’ 450 hp and one 9’ x 12’ 400 hp. Classification is realized with a single cyclone. The underflow is used to feed both ball mills with the overflow as the final grinding product.

The cyclone overflow feeds three similar thickeners of 38 feet in diameter by 14 feet high. The thickener's underflow feeds the leaching circuit. The leaching circuit has 6 leach tanks of 29 feet in diameter by 26 feet high with a capacity of 400 cubic metres each. The circuit is designed with three washing stages. The first washing stage is done after the first three leaching tanks, the second after the fifth leach tank and the final washing at the end of the leaching circuit. The washing is done with two drums filters, 12’ in diameter x 16’ long, in each washing stage. The leaching retention time is around 45 hours at the nominal capacity. The filtered solution is sent from the filter to the thickener's overflow, which becomes the pregnant solution.

Gold is recovered through a Merrill Crowe process. The process consists of a solution bag clarifier followed by Merrill Crowe Tower and Perrins presses. The gold recovery circuit has four 48” x 48” Perrin presses, two in operation and two on standby. The Perrin presses are cleaned periodically and the gold-bearing precipitate is melted in Wabi furnaces to produce doré bars. The mill has two Wabi furnaces.