Santana mine is a conventional open pit mine.

Mining activities commenced in June 2021 but were constrained initially due to access limitations based on the topography of the Nicho Norte starter pit location. These limitations continue to decrease as additional benches are extracted and mining production levels expand accordingly.

Mineralized material from the early phases (June/July) was placed on the leach pad and utilized as test material for the final commissioning/optimization of the project processing equipment.

The primary focus of the early ramp-up operations at Nicho Norte is to move the mine into commercial production while efficiently minimizing the upfront capital requirements. The scale of mining operations will continue to increase as the available working area for equipment in the starter pit expands with depth. In addition, the amount of mineralized material available for gold extraction (as a % of the total material stacked on the leach pad) will also continue to increase. Currently, a significant portion of this material (and the contained gold) is unavailable for recovery as it is located in areas being utilized as working surfaces for equipment to stack new material on the leach pad. This situation will continue to improve as the ramp-up continues.

- subscription is required.