Gold deposits in the CGP occur in three main mining centres – Cardinia, Mertondale and Raeside. Cardinia and Mertondale are located within the Minerie Greenstone Belt while the Raeside deposits occur in the Malcolm Greenstone Belt.

The CGP has approximately 45km of strike of the Minerie greenstone and is composed of four bi- modal, felsic-mafic volcanic flows. Gold mineralisation occurs in a number of styles: low sulphidation epithermal deposits, volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits, and orogenic style gold deposits. All mineralisation styles result in zones of supergene enrichment within the oxide profile above each deposit.

The Mertondale prospects extend over a strike length from Merton’s Reward in the south to Mertondale 5 (32.0koz mined in 1991) 12km to the north. Merton’s Reward (60.5koz previously mined), Mertondale 2 (2.7koz mined in 1987 and 2010) and Mertondale 3-4 (179.3koz mined between 1986 and 1993) are contained within the eastern branch of the Mertondale Shear Zone and extend over approximately 3km of strike. Quicksilver, Tonto, Eclipse and Mertondale 5 are all contained within the western shear zone and extend over approximately 9km of strike. The Mertondale area consists of an eastern mafic flow (mafic flow 3), a central felsic volcanic sequence which is overlain by a volcanoclastic sequence of rocks which include schists and carbonaceous shales, and topped by another mafic volcanic flow (mafic flow 4).

The Eastern ........

KIN plans to use conventional open pit mining methods to extract gold ore from nine deposits at the CGP divided into two mining centres; Cardinia and Mertondale (incorporating Mertondale East and Mertondale West deposits).

Open Pit mining is planned on a double shift continuous roster basis, using 120t excavators and 100t dump trucks (i.e. Komatsu PC1250-8SP excavator and Caterpillar 777F trucks or similar), with mining benches approximately 5m in height. Two mining fleets will be required to meet the scheduled processing plant feed requirements for the initial four years of mining.

Pit design parameters are governed by fleet size and required production rate. To produce sufficient ore to continuously feed the nominal 1.5Mtpa processing plant, a total movement of between 7Mtpa and 10Mtpa of waste is be required. Experience indicates that this can be achieved by a fleet of 125t excavator and 90t trucks. The selected mining fleet was modelled to operate with the following parameters:
- Ramp gradient of 1:10
- Bench height of 5m
- Minimum mining width of 20m.

Ore Reserve optimisations have been carried out taking the ramp widths and minimum mining widths into consideration, in addition to mining cost, treatment cost, transport cost, and mill recovery. Drill and blast activities will be carried out from surface on 5m benches and then excavated in 2.5m passes. A 5% drill and blast estimate has been assumed for oxide, 60% for tran ........

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