The Farim phosphate deposit is located within the Middle Eocene Lutetian Formation that forms part of the southern margin of the Mauritania-Senegal- Guinea Cenozoic sedimentary basin.

The Farim phosphate deposit is a flat-lying sedimentary phosphatic bed, which underlies an area in excess of 60 km2.

Sandy-argillaceous overburden with soft, alternating sandy, clayey and sandy-clayey layers:
- Phosphatic interval (FPO);
- Upper dolomitic limestone;
- Decarbonised phosphate unit (FPA) corresponding to the Saliquinhé phosphate deposit;
- Calcareous phosphate member (FPB);
- Limestone at the footwall of the phosphate sequence, white, soft and porous.

Overburden.
The overburden waste at Farim typically consists of a layer of reddish brown laterite gravel, followed by cream coloured clay with occasional cobbles and boulders of cemented orange sand and brown clay. This is followed by a layer of stiff brown to orange sandy clay and a layer of firm light grey, moist, high plasticity clay of a similar thickness. No laboratory test results are currently available for these materials.

The thickness of the overburden layers range from less than 20 m to over 40 m in the mining areas, whereas the phosphate matrix layer which is also a sedimentary deposit ranges from less than 2 m in thickness to over 5 m thick in places. Below these two layers is a soft rock limestone layer which increases quickly with depth to medium and hard bedrock.

FPO.
The FPO is a clayey dolomitic limestone that is weakly phosphatic and has limited economic potential. It comprises laminated green clays and aluminophosphate and is 0.5 m to 1 m thick. At the surface in the higher zones, laterite with a ferruginous cover in places may be found.

The FPA phosphate matrix is homogenous and has a grainstone texture, with grains less than 800 µm in size. It is a soft, poorly cemented unit of phosphatic sand, which includes phosphatised shell and bone material, teeth, faecal pellets and crustacean coprolites. There is no calcareous cement and it contains little silica and clay. It is mildly indurated and includes siliceous or pyritised layers 5 to 20 cm thick which comprise an average of 6% of the unit. The FPA layer has a P2O5 content of approximately 30% (consistently higher than 25%). The FPA unit is currently considered the potentially economic phosphate horizon.

The FPA is localised within the Saliquinhé bay sub-basin and is the potentially economic phosphate bed. The sub-basin is bounded to the south and east by carbonate platform rocks against which the FPA wedges out. The north- western limit of the FPA has not yet been defined. To the north, the Tambato submarine bar, which formed a barrier between the Saliquinhé bay and the deeper Casamance basin, will likely form the northern limited of the FPA unit but this has not been demonstrated by drilling.

The limits of the FPA unit, the hanging and the foot walls, are clearly defined. A mixture of saprolitic fine sand and clays, which are generally unconsolidated, overlies the FPA. The immediate hanging wall to the FPA is 20 to 60 cm thick unconsolidated sand. The hanging wall rocks are oxidised reddish brown to an elevation of about 10 m below sea level. The FPA is grey to beige and brown and lies in a generally reducing environment below the oxidised interval. This is important because iron oxide, which is soluble in sulphuric acid, is a contaminant in phosphate deposits whereas iron sulphide, which is insoluble in sulphuric acid, is not.

The FPA unit has an average width of about 3 m (in the resource area) and underlies an area of about 60 km2 . In the northern part of the basin, north of the village of Saliquinhé, a northeasterly trending area about 5.5 km long and 1.5 km wide has FPA thickness typically greater than 3.0 m and up to 6.0 m. A smaller area to the south of Saliquinhé, near the Cacheu River, also exceeds 3.0 m in thickness.

FPB.
The FPB is a calcareous phosphate unit consisting of alternating soft phosphate strata with carbonaceous gangue and thinner, hard strata of slightly phosphatic bioclastic limestone. The lower grade FPB layer consists of highly carbonated phosphate, generally containing 5% to 20% P2O5 with an average of 13% P2O5. The FPB phosphatic limestone is indurated and much harder than FPA.

FPB is located immediately below FPA, but exists under only 50% of the area of FPA. FPB also has a large extent outside of FPA. This horizon is known to extend 20 km north to south and 50 km east to west with thickness variable from 1 to 15 m with an average thickness of approximately 5.3 m.

The FPA (Decarbonized phosphate unit) matrix is mined by a multiple bench open pit haul back mine using excavators and trucks. Golder selected the excavator/truck mining method based on lower initial capital, lower investment risk, increased grade control, limited power supply, and flexibility to adapt to a smaller scale Direct Shipping Option (DSO) operation if needed.

For the 1.75 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) (dry basis) open pit, it is planned that overburden will be stripped and removed with 12 cubic metre (m3 ) front end loaders (FEL) or other similar excavator matched with 97 tonne (t) capacity haul trucks. The matrix will be mined with 5 m3 bucket class backhoes matched with 36 t capacity trucks to minimize mining dilution and maximize matrix recovery. The matrix will be hauled to a 175,000 t (dry basis) ROM stockpile adjacent to the plant, and segregated by quality. The matrix will be reclaimed and carefully blended into a ROM Bin by front-end wheel loaders with 12 m3 buckets to achieve the desired product P2O5 grade. The plant feed hopper will be installed so that matrix haul trucks can directly feed matrix to the plant if possible.

Because of the concentrated annual rainfall from July through September, the mine plan limits mining activities at full production to nine months out of the year; the other three months will be mined at reduced productivity. Operations must be vigilant with in-pit dewatering to prevent pit flooding and maintain pit stability.

The remote nature of the Farim operation, with limited power supply, precludes the use of electric mining equipment. All mining equipment selected for the plan is diesel mobile equipment.

Summary of Mine Plan parameters:
- Permanent wall angle - 20°:
- Permanent wall operational - FOS >1.3:
- Bench Height - 10 m:
- Short-Term Bench Face (Batter) Angle - 65°:
- Short-Term Berm Width - 14.9 m:
- Long-Term Bench Face (Batter) Angle (After Sloughing) - 25°:
- Long-Term Berm Width (After Sloughing) - 6.5 m:
- Overburden angle of repose WD/IOB/SOS - 1V:4H / 1V:6H / 1V:6H:
- Overburden spoil swell factor 27%:
- Total Moisture (As-Received Basis), Overburden - 20%:
- Overburden Density (As-Received Basis) - 2.10 t/m3:
- Overburden Density (Dry Basis) - 1.68 t/m3:
- Total Moisture (As-Received Basis), Matrix - 0%;
- Matrix Density (As-Received Basis) - 1.75 t/m3:
- Matrix Density (Dry Basis) - 1.40 t/m3:
- Minimum mineable matrix thickness - 1 m:
- Mining roof loss - 100 mm:
- Mining floor dilution - 75 mm:
- Buffer between pit and river - 100 m;
- Full production mining months per year - 9 months:
- Reduced production mining months per year 3 months.

The overall 20° permanent slope angle is the controlling factor for the slope recommendations. The temporary dig face angle of 65 degrees is an assumed typical temporary slope angle cut by an excavator or loader that, over time, will slough and erode to a flatter slope angle. The benches in the higher cohesion clay soils will maintain steeper bench faces over the lifetime of the pit wall. Near surface soils may be expected to have additional cohesion from laterite formation and cementation by iron oxides. Cohesionless sand will reach flatter bench face angles over time. The intent of the slope design is to maintain an effective safety bench through the duration of the phased final pit walls. The 25° permanent bench face angle represents the minimum expected long term bench face angle and provides a 6.5-m wide safety bench.

The process description details the 1.75 Mtpa beneficiation plant for the production of 1.32 Mtpa of phosphate concentrate.

ROM will be delivered by 36 tonne dump trucks from the open pit. ROM will either be dumped directly into the ROM Bin or dumped onto the ROM stockpile. The ROM stockpile will have a five weeks storage capacity equivalent to 175,000 live tonnes.

ROM ore (P80 25 mm) will be dumped by haul trucks or loaded by wheel loaders directly into the ROM Bin. The ROM Bin will be equipped with a static grizzly to prevent oversized rocks from entering the bin. A belt feeder will extract ROM rock from the bin to be conveyed to the horizontal scrubber.

For metallurgical accounting and plant control purposes, weightometers will be installed on the scrubber feed conveyor.

The scrubbing and sizing circuit will include a horizontal scrubber, an attrition scrubber, two reject screens, two-stage desliming cyclones, two hydrosizers, and a classification cyclone cluster and associated equipment.

Blended ore with a F80 of 25 mm will be fed into the horizontal drum scrubber feed chute at an instantaneous rate of 219 dry t/h. Process water will be added to maintain a scrubber discharge slurry density of approximately 35% solids. The horizontal drum scrubber will be bi-directional and will be driven by five 90 kW motors. The horizontal scrubber will be 3.6 m diameter by 10.0 m EGL (effective grinding length) and is sized based on 5 minutes of retention time.

The product from the horizontal scrubber will discharge onto a vibrating screen with 5 mm slotted openings to remove +5 mm material. The 1.8 x 3.6 m2 screen will be fitted with water sprays to remove clay balls and fine slimes from the surface of oversize rocks. The oversize material from the vibrating screen is considered reject and will be conveyed to the reject bin, to be transported off-site. The screen undersize will be deslimed with a two- stage cyclone cluster circuit using a cut point at 75 µm. The overflows of the cyclone clusters will combine with the overflow of the hydrosizers (-106 µm material). The underflow of the secondary cyclone cluster will flow into the attrition scrubber. The attrition scrubber will have four compartments – each 3.8 m3 in volume to give a total retention time of 5 minutes. The normal retention time required for majority of the ore types is 2.5 minutes for attrition scrubbing hence only two of the four cells will be in operation. In the event where some deposits may require more retention time, all four cells will be in operation. Process water will be added to the underflow of the desliming cyclones to maintain a slurry of approximately 55% solids in the attrition scrubber.

Attrition scrubber products will discharge onto a vibrating screen with 1.18 mm slotted openings to remove +1.18 mm material. The 1.8 x 3.6 m2 screen will be fitted with water sprays to clean the surfaces of the material and release agglomerated clay, iron and phosphate particles and to produce a 40% solids density undersize. Oversize material from the vibrating screen is considered reject and will be combined with the +5 mm material on a rejects conveyor to be conveyed to the rejects bin. A weightometer will be installed on the rejects conveyor for accounting purposes. Vibrating screen undersize will be pumped to two hydrosizers for additional separation at 0.106 mm.

The hydrosizers will be 3.3 m wide x 3.3 m long x 6.7 m high in size. Hydrosizer underflow at 1.18 x 0.106 mm and 70% solids density will be diluted to 55% solids in an agitated tank prior to being pumped to the concentrate filter feed tank. Hydrosizer overflow at -0.106 mm will be sent to a pump feed tank to be combined with the desliming cyclones overflow from which the material will be pumped to a cyclone cluster for classification at 0.020 mm. The cyclone cluster will consist of ten canisters and each canister will consists of eight 100 mm cyclones. Under normal conditions, 8 canisters will be in operation and 2 canisters will be on stand-by. Classification cyclone underflow at 45% solids will become the 0.106 x 0.020 mm fine concentrate and reports the fine concentrate pump tank for transfer to the fine concentrate thickener. The -0.020 mm cyclone overflow will be rejected as fines and will be sent to the coarse tailings tank.

Fine Concentrate Thickening.
The fine concentrate thickening area will include a pump tank, a deep cone thickener and other associated equipment. Classification cyclones underflow will be collected in the fine concentrate pump tank prior to being pumped to the fine concentrate thickener. Filter cloth wash return water and filter sump pump discharge will be periodically pumped to the fine concentrate pump tank to be re- processed. Underflow will be thickened to 55% solids and then will be pumped to the vacuum filter feed tank. Thickener overflow will flow by gravity back to the process water tank.

Concentrate Filtration & Storage.
The concentrate filtration and storage area will include a vacuum belt filter, a product transfer conveyor, a concentrate bin and other associated equipment. Coarse concentrate and thickened fine concentrate from fine concentrate thickener will be combined in the 22 m3 live concentrate filter feed tank from which it will be gravity-fed to the 1.6 m wide x 18m long concentrate belt filter. Phosphate concentrate will be filtered to achieve 8% moisture and the filter cake will discharge onto a concentrate filter discharge conveyor. Filtrate will be collected in a filtrate receiver and will be pumped back to the process water tank.

A cloth wash system for washing the vacuum filter belt is included for cleaning of the belt cloth. A sump pump is provided to pump any spillage back to the fine concentrate pump tank feeding the fine concentrate thickener.

The concentrate filter discharge conveyor will transport the filtercake into the concentrate transfer conveyor feed bin. A belt feeder under the feed bin will feed the concentrate filtercake onto the concentrate transfer conveyor, which is equipped with a weightometer for accounting purposes. The concentrate transfer conveyor crosses the Cacheu River and discharges into a 2,000 m3 live concentrate bin. Concentrate dump trucks, with 31 tonne payload, will drive under the concentrate bin to be loaded for transport to the port facility.

A truck wash station is provided near the entrance of the concentrate storage area to wash the concentrate dump trucks before entering the concentrate storage area. The under body and wheel wash will have a drivethrough concept where the trucks will drive through the station at 5 km/h with no stopping required. Trucks will be weighed before and after concentrate loading for accounting purposes.