The Morila permit is situated in the northern portion of the West African craton between the NNE trending Birimian volcano-sedimentary belts of Kalana-Yanfolila and Syama. The region is underlain predominantly by Lower Proterozoic meta-volcanic and metasedimentary sequences (Birimian) and large areas of granitoids. The whole package of rocks has been deformed by the Eburnean Orogeny. The permit area locates along a contact between Birimian metasediments and the Eburnean granitoids.

The Morila orebody is developed within upper greenschist to amphibolite facies of pelitic and psammitic rocks. Their mineralogy is dominated by biotite (30%), plagioclase (30%) and quartz (30%).

The package has been intruded to the southwest by a tonalite body similar in composition to the Morila sediments. The sediments have been locally metasomatised by the tonalite to produce a feldspar porphyroblastic texture.

Arsenopyrite is generally associated with mineralisation and is by far the most dominant sulphide (80%) followed by lesser amounts of pyrrhotite (15%) and pyrite (5%) The pyrrhotite is ubiquitous throughout the metasediments and occurs as irregular grains which often contain inclusions of chalcopyrite. It is not uncommon for visible gold to be present.

Gold mineralisation is predominantly associated with coarse arsenopyrite, occurring as individual grains on arsenopyrite grain boundaries or as intergrowths or as free gold in a silicate mineral matrix in the proximity of arsenopyrite grains. A small percentage of the gold occurs as inclusions within the sulphides and occasionally the gold is locked within silicate minerals (<5%).

Mineralisation is hosted in a sequence of relatively flat lying stacked veins located 70 - 130m below surface. Mineralisation does steepen due to shearing and faulting in certain places.

Various theories have been derived for the genesis of mineralisation at Morila and several internal and academic studies have been completed and published. Most agree that the key factors influencing the location of mineralisation are competency contrasts in the host sediments (fine grained vs coarse grained), fluid and heat from proximal granitoids, and proximity to regional structures.

The N’Tiola, Viper and Koting deposits are shear vein hosted orogenic style gold deposits. This style of mineralisation typically forms as veins or disseminations in altered host rock. Deposits of this type often form in proximity to linear geological structures.

Surficial geology within the project area typically consists of indurated gravels forming plateau, and broad depositional plains consisting of colluvium and alluvial to approximately 5m vertical depth. Lateritic weathering is common within the project area. The depth to fresh rock is typically 35m vertical.

The LOMP (Life of Mine Plan) envisages that tailings production via hydraulic mining will progressively ramp down and cease by December 2021. Production will increase through mining of Morila Pit 5 (adjacent to the Morila Super Pit) and the satellite pits (Koting, N’Tiola and Viper) at a rate of up to 3 million tonnes per annum.

Initial activities comprise pre–stripping of waste from the first stage of the Morila Super Pit, which will continue during Q1 2022. Ore mining is currently forecast to commence during Q2 2022, with the Morila Super Pit becoming a consistent source of ore in the second half of 2022.

Satellite Pit
Current gold production is from the hydraulic mining of tailings. A number of additional ore sources will be mined in conjunction with, and subsequent to, tailings commencing in June 2021; tailings production is planned to cease in December 2021. The ore sources include:
• Mechanically mined tailings from the dam floor and now stockpiled on the ROM pad;
• The Viper, N’Tiola and Koting satellite pits located 22-25 kilometres to the north via haul road;
• Morila Pit 5 near-surface pit and adjacent to the Morila Super Pit.

The N’Tiola, Viper and Koting deposits will be mined by open pit methods. Ore and waste will be mined using a conventional mining fleet provided by mining contractors. Firefinch will supervise mining and ore production and undertake grade control activities.

The mining contractor will supply a fleet of 100 tonne excavators matched to 100 tonne dump trucks for load and haul to the ore pads adjacent to each pit. Where drill and blast is required, it will be via track mounted blasthole drill rigs with grade control undertaken with track mounted Reverse Circulation (RC) drill rigs. Ore will be hauled to the plant ROM pad from the pitstockpile via a 40 tonne road truck fleet.

A blasting bench height of 5 metres has been assumed, with a selective mining sub-bench height, or flitch height, of 2.5 metres. Single lane ramps were utilised to provide access to the bottom benches for a maximum of 45 vertical metres (450 metreslength). A mining dilution of 10% and mining ore loss of 2% was applied as suitable parameters for the style of orebody and planned bench heights of 2m to 2.5m.

Waste dumps were designed in conjunction with pit design with an overall slope of 18° to 20° to minimise recontouring requirement for rehabilitation.

Morila Super Pit
The Morila Super Pit will be mined by open pit methods. Ore and waste will be mined using a conventional mining fleet provided by mining contractors. Firefinch will supervise mining and ore production and undertake grade control activities.

The mining contractor will supply a fleet of excavators matched to the truck fleet, which will vary from 100 tonne class to potentially 190 tonne class dump trucks, for load and haul which will be predominantly direct tipped, with some stockpiling at the crusher run of mine stockpiles. The majority of ore will require drill and blast via track mounted blasthole drill rigs with grade control undertaken with track mounted RC drill rigs.

Single lane ramps were utilised to provide access to the bottom benches for a maximum of 45 vertical metres (450 metres length).

Waste dumps were designed in conjunction with pit design with an overall slope of 18° to 20° to minimise recontouring requirement for rehabilitation. The pit design from which the ore reserve is derived only intersects the existing waste dump in the north-western corner of the pit and requires minimal rehandle of this dump. The conceptual final push back progress further north-west and requires much of the existing waste dump to be relocated during the later stages of mining.

Tailings have been placed into the pit and some 39 million tonnes of material are required to be moved from the pit to the tailings dam as mining progresses. Waste rock of approximately 4 million tonnes has also been placed in the pit and will be removed by truck and excavator as part of mining.

All pits used inter ramp wall angles ranging from 30.5º in oxide to 45° in transition material to 62.5º in fresh. Ramp widths were set to 25m for two land access reducing to 13.5m for single lane in the bottom 40-50 vertical metres of the pit.

The new LOMP ( Life of Mine Plan) envisages mining and processing of some 37.5 million tonnes at 1.33 g/t gold at 1.45 million recovered ounces of gold for an average annual production of 160,000 ounces of recovered gold to 2030.

The processing rate of tailings material in recent years has been up to 6 million tonnes per annum. Open pit ore will require the re-start of the crushing and grinding circuits at Morila. Extensive refurbishment work has been completed and re-commissioning of crushing and grinding circuits is scheduled for May 2021. Open pit ore processing will initially ramp up to approximately 3 Mtpa, then with process improvements and upgrades will increase to approximately 4 Mtpa.

The Morila processing plant is a conventional Carbon in Leach (CIL) facility and commenced operating in 2000. The process is well established for the extraction of gold. It is assumed that metallurgical recoveries will match those historically achieved by ore from deposits ........