The Çamyurt Gold deposit is high-sulphidation, epithermal gold deposit. Gold mineralization at Çamyurt is hosted within Miocene age andesitic tuffs or felsic volcanic rocks and phreatic breccias typical in some deposits of this type.

Çamyurt Gold Property is a highsulphidation, epithermal gold deposit. Premier examples of this kind of deposit in the world are Yanacocha, Pierina and Alto Chicama in Peru. Most high sulphidation deposits are large, low-grade bulk-tonnage systems (Yanacocha), though vein-hosted high-sulphidation deposits also occur (El Indio).

Drilling at Çamyurt has defined a mineralized zone that is continuous for at least 1,200 metres ("m") along strike with additional potential to extend mineralization to the northeast and at depth. Gold mineralization is hosted within a tabular, steeply-dipping oxidized zone starting at surface and with a cross-strike width up to 150m.

Turkey consists of crustal fragments assembled by early Tertiary time as the result of southerly
directed obduction events that recorded the collision of Gondwana and Laurasia. The Biga Peninsula is located in the western part of the Sakarya tectonic domain, which is bounded by the Intra-Pontide suture to the north and the Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture to the south. The Biga Peninsula is made up of several northeasterly trending structural domes composed of metamorphosed Paleozoic and Mesozoic basement rocks and intervening, east to northeast trending, extensional basins filled with Paleogene and younger volcanic strata. Exotic blocks of eclogite and blueschist occur in a tectonic mélange that forms part of a possibly Permian volcanic-sedimentary complex adjacent to the Kazdag massif north of Küçükkuyu.

The Çamyurt deposit will be mined by conventional open pit hard rock mining methods. Alamos Gold plans to utilize a contract mining company to move the mineralized material and waste from the pit.

Çamyurt will be developed on the basis that the Project will have minimal stand-alone infrastructure. Mineralized material from Çamyurt will be mined and trucked approximately 8 km to be processed through the infrastructure at Agi Dagi once the Baba and Deli pits have been mined out.

A traditional drill, blast, load and haul sequence will be used to deliver mineralized material to the crushing circuit at Agi Dagi. Waste produced over the life of the mine will be sent to the waste rock dump located near the Çamyurt pit, or backfilled into the pit once the ultimate pit bottom has been achieved.

The ore will be processed by two primary crushing circuits and open circuit secondary crushing. The secondary crushed ore will be agglomerated, stacked on the heap leach pad by conveyor stacking and processed by heap leaching methods.

ROM will be transported from two separate pits, Baba and Deli, using 50 tonne haul trucks. Each pit will have a dedicated primary crushing circuit. Ore at nominally minus 800 mm (P100 will be 800 mm and P80 will be 64.7 mm), will be fed into the dump hoppers that discharges using apron feeders at a rate of 833 dry metric tonnes per hour (dmt/h) per primary crusher. Each dump hopper area will be equipped with water and compressed air for dust suppression. The apron feeders will discharge into a vibratory grizzly that separates the ore at 150 mm. Undersize from the vibratory grizzly discharges onto the primary crushing discharge conveyor. Oversize from the vibratory grizzly will be fed to the primary crusher. A rock breaker will be installed for breaking the occasional rocks larger than 800 mm.

The primary crushers will reduce the ore size to a P100 of 260 mm (P80 of 60 mm), at a rate of 833 metric tonnes per hour (dmt/h) each. Ore discharging from the primary crusher will be combined with the underflow from the vibratory grizzly and conveyed, using the primary crushing discharge conveyors, to the stockpile feed conveyor. The stockpile feed conveyor will be equipped with a weight scale for material balances. The coarse ore stockpile will have a live capacity of nine hours. Six reclaim feeders (four operating, two standby) will continuously reclaim coarse ore from the stockpile; feeding two parallel crushing circuits.

Coarse ore from the reclaim feeders will be discharged onto two reclaim conveyors where it will pass through the reclaim conveyor weigh scales, cross belt magnets and metal detectors. The reclaim conveyors will feed two separate secondary crushing screens. The secondary crushing screens will be equipped with dust suppression systems to remove any fugitive dust. The secondary crushing screens will be double deck banana type with a top deck aperture of 60 mm and a bottom deck aperture of 30 mm. Undersize from the secondary crushing screens discharges to the secondary crushing screen discharge conveyors which feed the secondary crushing discharge conveyors. Oversize from the secondary crushing screens will feed the secondary crushers (standard cone crushers) at a nominal rate of 398 dmt/h each and discharge onto the secondary crushing discharge conveyors. The secondary crushers will reduce the ore size to P100 of 63 mm (P80 of 26 mm).

Çamyurt has been designed as a 15,000 t/d mining operation with mineralized material to be hauled approximately 8 km to the crushing circuit at Agi Dagi where it will be processed by primary and secondary crushing to a nominal size of 26 mm. The secondary crushed mineralized material will be drum agglomerated, stacked on the leach pad by conveyor stacking and processed with conventional heap leaching methods.

The crushed mineralized material will be stacked in 10 m lifts on the Agi Dagi leach pad facility which will be expanded in three phases and have an ultimate capacity of 73.6 Mt. This is sufficient to accommodate the 54.4 Mt Agi Dagi Mineral Reserve and 16.6 Mt of mineralized material included in the PEA mine plan for Çamyurt. A dilute cyanide solution will be applied to the crushed mineralized material over a 90-day leaching cycle with the pregnant solution collected and processed through the ADR plant where gold and silver doré will be produced.

The following design criteria are for engineering, design and specification of the process
requirements for the Agi Dagi Project. The process facilities encompass the following operations for 30,000 dry metric tonnes per day (dmt/d) operation:

- Two primary crushing and coarse ore stockpile;
- Secondary crushing;
- Agglomeration;
- Heap leaching;
- Carbon adsorption, desorption and recovery;
- Electrowinning and refining;
- Water treatment; and
- Reagents.

Crushed ore from the overland conveyor will be split into two separate streams, using a manual slide gate, at a rate of 833 dmt/h each. The slide gate will discharge onto two separate agglomeration feed conveyors. Portland cement, at a rate of 2.5 kg/t of ore, will be added onto the agglomeration feed conveyors from their respective cement silos prior to discharging into the agglomeration drums. Barren solution will be added to the agglomeration drums to bring the ore moisture content to 7.5%.

The agglomerated ore is discharged onto the agglomerator collection conveyor where concentrated sodium cyanide solution is dripped onto the ore at a rate of 2 L/hr using the leach activator pump. The agglomerator collection conveyor discharges onto the heap feed conveyor.

Heap Leach Stacking
1,666 dmt/h of agglomerated ore from the heap feed conveyor is transferred to the heap leach pad through a series of conveyors.

The heap leach will be built by placing the ore in 10 m lifts using the radial stacker.

The leach pad will be built using multiple-lifts with a capacity for approximately 70 M dry tonnes. The leach cycle is designed for 90 days of ore leaching, where a dilute sodium cyanide solution is applied using drip emitters and sprinklers at a rate of 10 L/h/m2.

Barren solution from the adsorption-desorption-recovery (ADR) circuit will be pumped into the barren solution tank which will have an approximate 80 minute residence time of 1,765 m3 . Barren solution will be pumped onto the heap, using two pairs, four total, of horizontal centrifugal pumps in series, at a rate of 1,688 m3 /h. An additional set of standby pumps are included for an overall total of six pumps. Concentrated sodium cyanide solution will be added to the barren solution tank and antiscalant will be added to the suction side of the barren solution pumps using metering pumps.

As the cyanide solution will percolate through the ore, it will leach the gold, silver and any cyanide soluble metals. The pregnant solution will be collected at base of the heap pad on the geomembrane liner. Drainage pipes throughout the heap pad will drain the pregnant solution into the pregnant solution sump at a rate of 1,630 m3 /h. The sump liner drain pump discharges into the pregnant solution pond.

Adsorption
The adsorption circuit will process 1,630 m3 /h of pregnant solution from the pregnant solution pond. The adsorption circuit will consist of two identical adsorption trains that will contain five carbon columns each. A single adsorption column will hold 10.6 t of 6 x 12 mesh activated carbon. Each column will be equipped with internal diaphragms with bubble caps.

The pregnant solution in the head tank gravity feeds the first carbon column. The solution will flow from column to column by gravity and the flowrate will be controlled by dart valves. Solution leaving the fifth column will be discharged over a carbon safety screen and collected in the barren surge tank.

Carbon will be transferred from tank to tank by use of a single carbon transfer pump. Carbon will be pumped countercurrent to the flow of the pregnant solution and will be discharged from the first column. Loaded carbon will be transferred in 5.3 t batches to the loaded carbon holding tank.

Stripping and Electrowinning
The carbon desorption circuit will consist of two (2) mild steel vessels sized to hold 5.3 t of loaded carbon each. A 5.3 t of loaded carbon is pumped from the carbon holding tank to one of the strip columns. The remaining carbon from the absorption circuit will be pumped into the other strip column.

Barren solution from the electrowinning cell, combined with sodium hydroxide and cyanide solution, will be pumped through a plate and frame heat exchanger. Additional sodium hydroxide and cyanide solution will be supplied from the reagent area. The solution will be further heated to 143°C and 297 kPa by an electric boiler circulating through a primary heat exchanger, heat recovery exchanger, and a cooling heat exchanger. The heated solution will then be fed through the bed of loaded carbon in the strip vessels where the metals will be extracted into solution.

Pregnant solution will be pumped from strip column through the cooling heat exchanger and into the electrowinning feed tank. The solution from the feed tank will be pumped into four, 100 ft3 (2.83 m3), high efficiency sludge type electrowinning cells. Gold, silver and other metals will potentially be plated onto stainless steel cathodes.

Several times a week, a set of cathodes will be pressure washed to remove the metal containing sludge. The sludge will then pumped to the sludge press for dewatering. The filter cake will contain primarily gold and silver but copper and mercury will be present as well.

Barren solution is recycled back to the strip vessel, with sodium hydroxide and cyanide make-up, for further stripping. After approximately every third strip cycle, the strip solution will be discharged to the barren solution tank and new strip solution will be prepared.

Once the carbon is stripped, the carbon will be pumped to the acid wash circuit. The acid wash circuit will also be piped in such a fashion that acid washing can performed prior to stripping as well.

Carbon Regeneration
The carbon regeneration circuit will receive every third batch of carbon from the acid wash circuit. The acid wash carbon will be pumped over a dewatering screen to remove water and carbon fines prior to being discharged into the regeneration feed hopper. The feed hoppers will be sized to accommodate one and a half batches of carbon. Dewatered carbon will be screw fed into an electric kiln at a nominal rate of 150 kg/h. The kiln will be capable of being fed 6 X 20 mesh carbon at a rate between 125 to 200 kg/h and will operate at a temperature between 550 to 600°C with a maximum temperature of 650°C.

Refining
Filter cake from the sludge filter will be fed to the electric mercury retort. The mercury retort removes any mercury from the gold bearing sludge by vaporization and will dry the sludge prior to smelting. It will also dry the sludge in preparation for flux addition and mixing. Vaporized mercury will be collected and condensed in the mercury condenser.

Dried metal material from the mercury retort will be mixed with a combination of fluxes containing silica, borax, fluorspar, soda ash and niter. The mixture will then be fed to the smelting furnace to further purify the metal.

- subscription is required.