The Valentine Gold Property is located within the Exploits Subzone of the Dunnage tectonostratigraphic zone of central Newfoundland. The Valentine gold deposits are hosted primarily by the Valentine Lake Intrusive Complex, which occurs proximal to the contact between the Victoria Lake Supergroup to the northwest and the Silurian (or younger) Rogerson Lake Conglomerate to the southeast. The Valentine Lake Intrusive Complex is dated at 563 Ma and comprises an elongate northeast-trending body of igneous rocks consisting of dominantly fine-to medium-grained trondhjemite and quartz porphyry units with lesser aphanitic quartz porphyry, gabbro, and minor pyroxenite units.

The Rogerson Lake Conglomerate occurs as a narrow linear unit that extends for 160 km and lies unconformably (overturned) on the southeast margin of the Valentine Lake Intrusive Complex. The conglomerate is interpreted to have infilled a fault bounded paleo-topographic depression. The entire project area is overlain by glacial till between 1 and 5 m thick, as well as boggy areas and ponds, with bedrock exposure along a ridge trending NE – SW through the property and in stream beds.

The structurally controlled, orogenic-type gold deposits at the property occur along, or proximal to, the Valentine Lake Shear Zone—a major crustal-scale, reverse sinistral shear zone that formed during transpressional tectonics following regional compressive thrust tectonics that juxtaposed the Precambrian rocks of the Valentine Lake Intrusive Complex against the Silurian-aged Rogerson Lake conglomerate. Second and third order splays at oblique angles to the Valentine Lake Shear Zone are poorly defined but are inferred to provide localised structural control to gold deposition, having provided zones of extension for the formation of gold-bearing quartz vein arrays, stockworks, and shear zones. On a property scale, the regional deformation is manifested as a NE-SW striking and steep NW to sub-vertical penetrative S1 foliation with a moderate to steep N-NE plunging penetrative L1 lineation.

Four gold deposits and numerous early exploration stage gold prospects and occurrences have been discovered to date. The Leprechaun, Marathon, Sprite and Victory gold deposits are the most advanced within the property, with other gold prospects at the Frank, Rainbow, Triangle, Victoria Bridge, Narrows, Victory SW, Victory NE and Berry occurrences located intermittently proximal to the contact between the Valentine Lake Intrusive Complex and the Rogerson Lake Conglomerate. The deposits occur as structurally controlled, orogenic gold deposits consisting of dominantly shallow southwest dipping, en-echelon stacked extensional and lesser shear parallel gold-bearing quartz-tourmaline-pyrite (QTP) veining. The dominant extensional gold-bearing QTP veining is orientated at high-angle to the penetrative L1 lineation and represents infilling of ruptured host lithologies during continued extensional tectonics and transition from ductile to more brittle rock mechanics. Similarly, lesser shear parallel gold-QTP veining infilled along shear planes parallel to the Valentine Lake Shear Zone.

All the gold deposits/occurrences share similar general characteristics, where gold mineralisation is associated with dominantly extensional and lesser shear parallel QTP veins that occur within the trondhjemite and quartz-eye porphyry and lesser mafic dike units along and proximal to the sheared contact with the Rogerson Lake conglomerate. The gold-bearing QTP veins have been observed over a strike length of 20 km within the Valentine Gold Property. Minor amounts of gold-QTP veining extends laterally across the shear contact and into the conglomerate. Gold-bearing QTP veining in the quartz porphyry of the Valentine Lake Intrusive Complex is also exposed up to 500 m and 1,000 m from the contact in the Steve and Scott zones, respectively.

The gold-bearing quartz-tourmaline-pyrite veins range in thickness from a few millimetres and centimetres to metres, but are typically 2 to 30 cm thick. Visible gold in the QTP veins occurs as grains, ranging in size from <0.1 mm and up to 1-2 mm, hosted by quartz, tourmaline masses, within and along the margins of coarse cubic pyrite, or associated with minor tellurides. Highest gold grades are commonly associated with large (1 to 3 cm) cubic pyrite within the QTP veining.

Mining is based on conventional open pit methods suited for the project location and local site requirements. The mining fleet will include diesel-powered down the hole (DTH) drills with 165 mm bit size for production drilling; diesel-powered RC drills for bench-scale grade control drilling; 12 m3 bucket size diesel hydraulic excavators and 13 m3 bucket sized wheel loaders for production loading; 91 tonne payload rigid-frame haul trucks and 36 tonne articulated trucks for production hauling; plus ancillary and service equipment to support the mining operations. In-pit dewatering systems will be established for each pit. All surface water and precipitation in the pits will be handled by submersible pumps.

Ore will be hauled to a crusher 3.5 km southwest of the Marathon pit and 3.0 km northeast of the Leprechaun pit. Ore will be crushed to feed the process plant; waste rock will be deposited into waste rock storage facilities (WRSF) adjacent to the pits, or used as rockfill to construct a tailings dam 2.0 km southwest of the Marathon pit and 4.5 km northeast of the Leprechaun pit.

Ultimate pit limits are split into phases or pushbacks to target higher economic margin material earlier in the mine life. Both the Marathon and Leprechaun pits are split into three phases, or an initial phase followed by two pushbacks, with the initial phases containing mineralisation with a higher gold grade and lower strip ratio.

During the pre-stripping phase, all ore mined in the pit will be stockpiled. Throughout the life of operations, ore grading between 0.33 and 0.50 g/t Au will be stockpiled. Cut-off grade optimisation on the mine production schedule will also send ore above 0.50 g/t Au to a high-grade ore stockpile in certain planned periods. The stockpiled mineral reserves are planned to be re-handled and fed to the crusher once the pits are exhausted.
Mining operations will be based on 365 operating days per year with two 12-hour shifts per day.

An allowance of 10 days of no mine production has been built into the mine schedule to allow for adverse weather conditions.

Maintenance on mine equipment will be performed in the field with major repairs to mobile equipment in the shops located near the plant facilities.

Annual mine operating costs per tonne mined range from $2.07 to $3.84/t with a LOM average of $2.51/t mined. Mine operations will include ore control and production drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, and pit, haul road and stockpile maintenance functions. Mobile equipment maintenance operations will also be managed by the Owner and are included in the mine planning and costs.

The mine equipment fleet is planned to be purchased via a lease financing arrangement.

The crushing circuit is designed for an annual operating time of 6,570h/a or 75% availability at the Phase 2 capacity of 10,960 t/d from the outset.

Material is hauled from the mine or stockpiles and direct tipped into to the ROM hopper. Provision for dumping on the ROM pad for blending and re-handling into the ROM hopper is provided. Material from the ROM hopper is crushed by a primary jaw crusher. ROM hopper material is reclaimed by a vibrating grizzly at 381t/h to feed the jaw crusher.

A fixed rock breaker is utilised to break oversize rocks at the feed to the jaw crusher. The crushed material is conveyed to a covered stockpile that provides approximately 19hours of live storage at the Phase 1 processing rate. Given the milling operation is designed for an annual operating time of 8,059 h/a or 92% availability, this will result in excess crushed material production when the crusher is operational. The excess crushed material will allow routine crusher maintenance to be carried out without interrupting feed to the mill.

The mill feed stockpile is equipped with apron feeders to regulate feed at 310t/h into the SAG mill. Crushed material is drawn from the stockpile by two apron feeders and feeds the SAG mill and ball mill circuit via the SAG mill feed conveyor. Pebble lime is added to the SAG mill feed conveyor for pH control in leaching as required. Pebbles from the SAG mill are fed to a recycle circuit via conveyors and discharged on the SAG mill feed conveyor to recycle to the SAG mill.
The material handling and crushing circuit includes the following key equipment:
-ROM hopper
-vibrating grizzly
-fixed rock breaker
-primary jaw crusher
-mill feed apron feeders (equipped with VSDs)
-material handling equipment

The grinding circuit consists of a SAG mill followed by a ball mill in closed circuit with hydrocyclones. The circuit is sized based on a SAG F80of 130 mm and a ball mill product P80of 75 µm. The SAG mill slurry discharges through a trommel where the pebbles are screened and recycled to the SAG mill via conveyors. Trommel undersize discharges into the cyclone feed pumpbox. The ball mill is fed by cyclone underflow and gravity circuit tails.

The ball mill discharges through a trommel and the oversize is screened out and discharged to a scats bunker. Trommel undersize discharges into the cyclone feed pumpbox.

Water is added to the cyclone feed pumpbox to obtain the appropriate density prior to pumping to the cyclones. This hopper also has a dedicated pump to feed the gravity circuit scalping screen. Cyclone overflow gravitates to the leach-adsorption circuit via a trash screen.
The grinding circuit includes the following key equipment:
-6,500 kW SAG mill (equipped with VSDs)
-4,200 kW ball mill
-cyclone feed pumpbox
-classification cyclones

Testwork was analysed and several process flowsheets were assessed in the initial stages of the pre-feasibility study. Based on the analysis, a process route was chosen as the best suited for the testwork results and subsequent economic analysis for the material. The unit operations selected are typical for this industry.

Per the mining production schedule, as the high-grade ore is fed to the mill in the first three years, the project will utilise a more capital cost-effective mill design, nominating gravity recovery and gravity tails cyanidation at a primary grind of 75 µm.
As the mill feed grade decreases, and plant capacity is required to increase to maintain gold production, the project will use the existing grinding mills, and coarsen the primary grind to 150 µm. Flotation equipment will then be employed to recover the majority of the gold to a low mass concentrate stream, and ultra-fine grinding and cyanidation will be applied. Using this approach, initial capital ........