San Albino, Nicaragua’s newest high-grade gold mine, is a high-margin open pit operation. Commercial production declared effective July 1, 2021.
Open Pit Mining (PEA 2015)
Pits slopes have been designed using P&E’s experience with similar rock materials, using a 40° inter-ramp angle.
Four open pits are envisaged for the Project. These include the West Pit; the NE Pit; the SW Pit and the Central Pit.
The proposed open pits would utilize conventional open pit mining equipment and drill/blast/load/haul technologies. Open pit mining would proceed as successive pre-strip and hard rock mining operations, and follow the trend of the mineralized deposit. Waste rock storage facilities will be constructed near the open pit exits.
Potential underground mining (PEA 2015)
An underground mining operation would access and extract mill feed located at depth and below the open pits. Access to the underground mine will be through an underground decline from surface.
The average true thickness of the underground mineralized zones is 2.6 m and the dip angle varies at approximately 26 degrees. The dip angle is below the angle of repose of broken rock and also is too steep for trackless equipment to move up or down dip within the mineralized zones. For this reason, the primary mining method is envisaged to be steep panel mining. Using hand held drills and slushers, the potential mill feed is blasted and scraped to the bottom of the ........