Phoenix is a skarn-hosted polymetallic massive sulfide replacement deposit.

Au-Cu-Ag-Pb-Zn skarn mineralization at Phoenix is centered about the Eocene Copper Canyon granodiorite porphyry stock. Paleozoic sedimentary rocks within two miles of the stock have undergone strong thermal metamorphism (hornfels) and metasomatism (skarn). Metal zonation is manifest by a CuMo core close to the stock grading outward into proximal Cu-Au-Ag, Au-Ag and distal Pb-Zn-Ag mineralization.

Phoenix is an open pit operation, located approximately 10 miles south of Battle Mountain, Nevada and can be accessed by paved highway to a Newmont maintained dirt road. The Phoenix surface mine’s available mining fleet consists of three shovels and twenty 240 ton haul trucks.

The Phoenix mill is both a copper concentrator and a gold cyanidation plant. Tonnage capacity of the mill varies from 33,000 to 38,000 tons per day depending on the character of the feed. Ore containing gold, copper, and silver values is processed by 1) crushing; 2) semiautogenous grinding (SAG) and ball mill grinding; 3) gravity concentration for free gold; 4) two-stage flotation to produce a copper sulfide concentrate containing copper, gold, and silver; 5) cyanidation; and 6) carbon-in-pulp (CIP) on the flotation tailings to recover gold and silver. Loaded carbon from CIP is processed by desorption and electrowinning, with the gold product from gravity concentration and electrowinning smelted off site.

Gravity concentrates are diverted to an intensive cyanidation unit (ICU) for gold recovery. Cyanide and lime are added to the CIP leach tanks for precious metal dissolution. The CIP leach tanks discharge to the CIP leach circuit, where dissolved precious metals are adsorbed ........