The Aldiss Area gold deposits lie within a north-trending ductile shear zone as Karonie Main and West Zones, Spice, Atreides and Tank. It consists of a series of sheared amphibolite facies, mafic rocks, with remnant veining and late-stage faulting. Several ‘late stage’ porphyries intrude the host rock. The Karonie resource extent consists of 1600m strike; 500m across strike; and 420m down dip and open at depth.

KARONIE
The standard excavate, load and haul method has been chosen as the appropriate mining method. The choice of the excavate, load and haul method was deemed appropriate due to the ore thickness, access, and nature of the geology. Mining dilution was assigned based on ore body width and minimum mining widths. This equates to an average of 13% dilution across the deposit. Mining recovery factor (95%) in an assumption made based on using similar mining operations and mining techniques. All infrastructure is in place for mining of Karonie.

TANK/ATREIDES
Open Pit
The standard excavate, load and haul method has been chosen as the appropriate mining method. The choice of the excavate, load and haul method was deemed appropriate due to the ore thickness, access, and nature of the geology. The mining method is currently used at the Aldiss Open Pits. Mining dilution was assigned based on ore body width and minimum mining widths. This equates to an average of 10% dilution across the deposit. Mining recovery factor (95%) in an assumption made based on using similar mining operations and mining techniques. All infrastructure is in place for Tank, as part of the Aldiss Project.

Removal of overburden and top soil ramped up at the Atreides and Tank open pits during the last quarter of FY21. Atreides and Tank open pit activity will continue until Q2 FY22. The Tank open pit is the first stage of an integrated open pit/underground operation with portal access to the Tank South underground to be located within the Tank open pit.

Underground
The Tank South Underground economic lode is approximately 90m high x 160m long and 12m wide. The mining method selected for the Tank South Underground is sublevel long-hole stoping. Primary and secondary stopes will be mined to allow full extraction of the ore. Primary stopes will be filled using a consolidated fill via boreholes directly from the surface into the crown of the stope. Stopes will be up to 90m high and 30m long.

Underground access will be established via a portal in the southern end of the Tank open pit with stoping levels to be accessed by a 1 in 7 decline (5.0 mW by 5.5 mH) with levels 20 to 25 m apart. The ore drives are designed at 4.8mW by 4.8mH allowing large loaders onto ore levels to achieve high production rates. Dilution has been added by applying a 0.5m hanging wall and 0.5m foot wall dilution to each stope. A 95% mining recovery has been applied to account for unplanned ore loss. Stope ore is blasted using conventual blasting techniques and bogged using remote loaders. Ore is loaded onto trucks and hauled to the surface ROM. A haulage decline and ventilation decline/rises have been designed.

Aldiss Mining Centre feeds the 1.3Mtpa Randalls mill. The ore will be treated using the Carbon in Leach process.