The deposit will be a conventional, open pit, truck-and-shovel operation. A mill feed of approximately 5,500 t/d is planned over a nine-year mine life. There will be a small quantity of pre-strip material in Year -1, with a full production ramp-up in year 1. The throughput rate in Year 1 was reduced to 80% of full capacity to reflect mill construction and start-up time.
A detailed mine design was not completed for this study, but mining will be performed on 30 ft (9.15 m) benches and 200 ft (60 m) mining widths. A series of shells were analyzed, and shells 10 and 22 where selected for mine planning.
During the mine scheduling exercise, the goal was to mine the highest-grade material first, while deferring the pre-stripping requirements until later. This would allow for early payback and to help improve the economics of this deposit. Only 0.21 Mt will be required to be moved during pre-striping.
Over the life of mine, the open pit will produce approximately 87 Mt of waste rock. At the time of this study, the waste rock acid-base accounting information was not available; therefore, all waste rock has been categorized as NAG waste rock.
This operation will be a conventional, open pit, truck-and-shovel operation. JDS prefers conventional, proven 90-tonne class trucks, 12.5 m3 class hydraulic shovels and front-end wheel-loaders for open pit loading and hauling. The front-end wheel loader is preferred for its mobility and ability to man ........