Plutonic Gold Operations is located within the Archaean Plutonic-Marymia Greenstone Belt, an elongate, northeast trending belt within the Marymia Inlier. The Marymia Inlier is an Archaean basement remnant within the Proterozoic Capricorn Orogen comprising two mineralised greenstone belts (Plutonic Well and Baumgarten), with surrounding granite and gneissic complexes. The Capricorn Orogen is situated between the Pilbara and Yilgarn Cratons and is possibly the result of oblique collision of the two Archaean cratons in the early Proterozoic.

The northeast trending Plutonic-Marymia Greenstone Belt extends over an 80 km strike length and is up to 10 km in width. The Belt is sub-divided into two volcano-sedimentary sequences, consisting of mafic and ultramafic units which are overlain by predominately felsic volcaniclastic and sedimentary rocks. These units have been subject to greenschist and amphibolite facies metamorphism, deformed by polyphase folding, shearing and faulting, and intruded by felsic porphyry and granitoid bodies. This has resulted in a strong northeast trending fabric parallel to multiple low-angle thrust faults. These thrust faultsoccur throughout the belt and are intimately associated with the known gold mineralisation.

Plutonic operation includes Plutonic underground and Hermes open pit mining objects.

Open cut mining operations commenced at the Plutonic Main Pit in 1990 and continued through to 1997. A string of satellite pits throughout the belt including Salmon pit continued surface production through to mid- 2005. In 1995, underground mining in the Plutonic Main Mine commenced from the west portal. Plutonic mine is accessed from 3 portals (west and vent located in the Main Pit) and the 550 box-hole cut portal. Underground mining takes place from 4 major declines with a series of internal ramps to access mining zones. Mineralisation zones extend over an area roughly 3.5km north to south and 2km east to west with a vertical extent of over 1350m.

Currently, Plutonic produces around 0.85mtpa from mechanised mining methods with other mining techniques also used. Longhole stoping is the main mining method used with a number of stoping techniques utilised to address the variations in orientation and shape of the stopes.

The Hermes Complex commenced being mined in December 2017 as a conventional open pit excavator-truck mining operation. A mining contractor was engaged for drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, and dumping, as well as civil services for general site maintenance works. The material mined from each pit is being stockpiled adjacent to each pit exit before being loaded onto road trains for transport along the haul road to Plutonic for processing through the existing mineral processing configuration.

Some near surface weathered material may be free-dig, but 100% of transitional material and fresh rock will be blasted. Blast-hole drilling will be undertaken using surface top hammer drill-rigs on 5 m benches using Plutonic Gold Mine Superior Gold Inc 94 hole sizes up to 115 mm diameter. Drill burden, spacing and sub-drill design will be a function of material types and powder factor. Drill and blast of 10 m benches in the upper waste sections of each pit will be reviewed. Explosive selection will depend on the presence of groundwater and the success of dewatering. The water table at Hermes is estimated at a nominal 29 m below the pit crest. For pit optimisation, ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO) was assumed in the oxide material and emulsion for the remainder of the deposit.

Haul trucks with a load capacity of 100 t will be used in conjunction with 120 t class hydraulic excavators in a backhoe configuration to achieve the required waste extraction ratio and selectively mine the ore. In general, 5 m benches will be mined on two 2.5 to 3.5 m fitches (allowing for heave after blasting). In harder material, where extensive heaving of blasts is likely to occur, it may be necessary to mine the heave separately down to bench level, followed by two 2.5 m fitches to minimise ore dilution. Ancillary services to support the production fleet include graders and water trucks for haul road maintenance and dozers for maintenance of pit benches, preparation of blasted benches, along with waste dump management.

The primary sections of the processing plant that are currently in use are:

• Crushing and conveying
• Ore reclaim and grinding
• Leaching and carbon adsorption
• Carbon stripping, electrowinning, refining and carbon regeneration
• Tailings thickening
• Tailings deposition and storage
• Reagent mixing and handling
• Plant services.

Crushing
Run of Mine (ROM) ore is trucked to the ROM pad from the underground mine. The ore is classified and stockpiled according to gold grade, arsenopyrite content, pyrrhotite content, and graphitic content so that blending can be undertaken to maintain an optimal feed to the processing plant. Oversize ore and tramp metal is sorted from stockpiles and broken on the ROM pad using a loader or excavator. Any oversize that cannot pass through the primary crusher grizzly is broken by a rock breaker mounted at the grizzly.

2Grinding
Crushed ore is withdrawn from the Fine Ore Bin vi ........