The graphite rich paragneiss is present at surface over 8.7 kilometers with an average width of 300m and up to 1,000m wide. The graphite rich paragneiss is hosted within the Archean Kénéma Man domain, consisting with granulitic and migmatitic gneiss with subordinate granitoides and relic supracrustal belts, which are metamorphosed to granulitic facies.

The Lola Graphite occurrence is a natural flake occurrence within a paragneiss.

The graphite mineralisation is located within the strongly sheared paragneiss, the shearing mechanism may have played a role as containing and constraining the graphite mineralisation within the paragneiss.

The first 20m or so of the deposit is well weathered (lateralized) freeing graphite flakes from the silicate gangue and allowing for easy grinding with an optimal recovery of large and jumbo flakes. Graphite mineralisation continues at depth within the non-weathered paragneiss.

Graphite mineralization is well exposed at surface on its entire strike length with sample grades ranging from trace to up to 20% of large flakes and often seen in higher concentration agglomerates.

The mining method selected for the Project is a conventional open pit operation with articulated 41- tonnes haul trucks, hydraulic excavators and wheel loaders with 5 m³ capacity.

The Project consists of three (3) separated mineralized areas: North, Central, and South. The North and Central areas have been separated by two areas each one to avoid flooding zones. A production schedule is based on a 29-year life of mine with includes 42.06 Mt of proven and provable mineral reserves at an average grade of 4.17% Cg.

Over the life of the mine, an average of 1.4 Mt per year (3,960 t/d) of ore will be mined from the open pit and hauled to the run of mine (ROM) pad. Given the constraints on the comminution circuit of the process plant, the blend between oxide material and fresh rock material contained in the ROM delivered to the process plant has been set at a maximum of 45% of fresh rock.

The mine will operate year-round, seven (7) days per week, twenty (20) hours per day (2 shifts, 10 hours each). Since the mill will operate seven (7) days per week, a run of mine stockpile will be maintained to provide a constant supply of feed to the crusher and maintain the maximum proportion (45%) of fresh rock. During the days when the mine is not operating (for technical or weather reasons), the crusher will be fed by the front-end loader from the stockpile. The mine fleet requirements and manpower are based on this work schedule.

The optimal plant recovery requires a blend of oxide and fresh rock with a maximum percentage of 45% of fresh rock. The overall percentage of fresh rock ore within 5 pits is 34%, and a total of 71% will be produced from Pit North 2 only. To maintain an optimal mill-feed blend, it is necessary to work in two to three pits at same time.

To reduce haulage times and distances, nearby dumps will be available for each of the five (5) pits. To reduce re-handling cost and management, no major stockpiles will be necessary for the first 14 years of operation. Only one (1) stockpile for the fresh rock will be planned near the plant and will be operated from Year 15.

In order to mine the northern portion of the North Pit 1, it is required that the national road will be relocated. The North Pit 1 has been separated into several phases so that the portion of the pit located north of the national road be mined first, and then be backfilled with some waste material coming from another portion of the same pit.

Once this In-Pit waste dump will be constructed, the National road will be relocated to the north and build over the In-Pit dump. Then, the remaining area of the North Pit 1 will be mined without any other constraints.

The rest of the pits will be mined consecutively, with the Central Pit 1 starting from Year 14, the Central Pit 2 starting from the Year 16 and the South Pit from the Year 17.

Mine Design Engineering (MDEng) was engaged to provide geotechnical design for pit slopes and waste rock dumps. The project consists of five (5) long, shallow open pits excavated in the residual soils (primarily saprolite) to a typical depth of 20-25 m, as well as one pit extending into competent rock with a maximum depth of about 166 m, and 8 proposed waste dump sites.

The mineral processing plant consists of a crushing area and a concentrator where material beneficiation and concentrate dewatering, screening, and packaging takes place.

The process flowsheet includes crushing, scrubbing and grinding, rougher flotation, polishing, and cleaner flotation. The back end of the concentrator includes tailings and concentrate thickening, concentrate filtration and drying, dry screening and bagging of graphite products, and material handling.

All the tailings from the concentrator will be thickened and pumped to the tailings ponds. Reclaiming water from the tailings ponds has been considered in the process design to minimize fresh water makeup to the concentrator.

The graphite concentrate will be recovered by a conventional flotation process. Saprolite ore beneficiation process has an overall graphite recovery of 73.1%, producing a graphite concentrate grade of 95.4% Cg. The addition of up to 45% of fresh rock in the feed blend improves the overall graphite recovery to 84.2%. A suitable process flowsheet able to handle saprolite as well as a feed blend with fresh rocks has been developed for the feasibility study. Processing plant equipment have a design factor of 15% above the nominal production rate.

Over the life of the mine, the plant will produce graphite concentrate divided into four (4) standardsize fractions: +48 mesh, -48+80 mesh, -80+100 mesh and -100 mesh.

Graphite concentrate quality is measured with flake size and purity. The design of the processing plant will target minimizing the graphite flakes degradation and production of the high-grade graphite concentrate. All nominal throughput rates are based on the production of 50,000 dry metric tonnes of 95.4%Cg concentrate. Average weight recovery of 3.2% and average graphite overall recovery of 73.1% is used for design. These figures are based on the applicable results of the test work completed on saprolite run-of-mine.

The crushing plant and the concentrator will operate 24 hours per day, seven (7) days per week, 52 weeks per year. The crushing plant will operate at 90% as the mineral sizers selected for that duty have a run-time factor higher than 90% as per the equipment supplier information. The concentrator run-time is 90%, typical for graphite processing facility operations.

Concentrator feed throughput has been established at an average rate of 4,306 dry tonnes per day or a nominal throughput rate of 199.4 dry metric tonnes of material per hour.

The processing area includes the following major facilities:
• Crushing and crushed material storage that will provide crushed material to the downstream concentrator;
• A concentrator that will include scrubbing, grinding, conventional rougher flotation, polishing, and conventional cleaner flotation;
• A graphite concentrate dewatering area that will consist of thickening, filtering, and drying; this area will include a concentrate screening as per size specification and bagging as per customer’s requirements;
• A tailings dewatering area that will consist of thickening.