The Moonlight copper deposit is classified as a porphyry copper deposit with associated gold, silver and molybdenum credits.

Oriented core and inspection of the bedrock in drilling sumps and shallow prospect workings showed that copper mineralization was contained on fractures with a wide variety of orientations. Strong copper mineralization was commonly observed on veinlets trending N20-35W and dipping 15-35 SW. In addition to the mineralization in shallow dipping fractures, copper is contained on NS steep
to moderately E dipping, N60-75E steeply N dipping, N70-85W steeply south dipping veinlets.

Both Sheffield and Placer have recognized that there at least two styles or stages of mineralization at the Moonlight deposit. The paragenetically earlier style is characterized by disseminated copper minerals located interstitial to quartz, feldspar, chlorite and especially disseminated rosettes of tourmaline. This mineralization usually consists of fine grained chalcopyrite but zones of disseminated bornite are also common. High in the system disseminated hypogene chalcocite has also been occasionally observed. Bornite has been observed to rim chalcopyrite grains in some places. Placer characterized this mineralization as late stage magmatic or pneumatolytic. A metasomatic origin should not be precluded. This style of mineralization shows some association with potassium feldspar and a very strong association with tourmaline and sometimes chlorite ........

All mining for the Moonlight deposit will be conducted utilizing conventional open pit mining methods with drill and blast, followed by load and haul with large diesel truck and shovel equipment.

The pit was designed to have varying haul road widths. A majority of the pit has a doublelane road, which is 100 ft (30.5 m) wide. This is based on the industry standard for the running width of a haul road to be a minimum of 3.5 times the width of the largest equipment, which in this case is a Komatsu 830 E haul truck. This does not include additional allocation for a drainage ditch and safety berm.

The depths of the pit were transitioned to a single-lane road to achieve a steeper pit slope and minimize the excavation and removal of uneconomical material. The singlelane road dimensions are 72 ft (22 m) wide.

The overall ramp gradient is 8% for both double lane and single lane roads.

Material will be drilled and blasted and then loaded with a hydraulic shovel into a fleet of haul trucks. This material will then be hauled from the open pit location to the primary crusher, where it will be end dumped into the crushing pocket. Waste will also be drilled and blasted, but will be loaded via one of two wheeled loaders. This waste will then be hauled to the WRMF and end dumped. From here a tracked dozer will push the dumped piles and shape the management facility as required.

Based on the selected bench height and the production ........

The 60,000 st/d processing plant will utilize three stages of crushing (gyratory, cone and HPGR crushing), ball mill grinding, and conventional flotation to produce a high-grade copper concentrate with associated precious metal credits. The processing plant will operate in two 12 h shifts per day, 365 d/a. The primary crushing plant availability will be 70%. Secondary crushing, tertiary crushing, grinding, and flotation plant availability will be 92%.

The process plant will consist of the following unit operations and facilities:

• run-of-mine (ROM) mineralized material receiving
• primary (gyratory) crushing
• crushed mineralized material stockpile and reclaim
• secondary crushing (cone crushers)
• tertiary crushing (HPGR crushers)
• ball mill grinding circuit incorporating with hydro-cyclones for classification
• copper rougher and scavenger flotation
• copper concentrate regrinding
• copper cleaner flotation
• coppe ........