Open pit mining will include conventional drilling and blasting with a combination of a backhoe type excavator and front end loader type excavator loading broken rock into haul trucks, which will haul the material from the bench to the crusher, ROM stockpile, or WMF depending on the material type.
The operation scenario studied for the San Matias Project involves:
* Open pit mining at an average mining rate of 39,600 tpd of mined material;
* Delivering 17,600 tpd of fresh and transition material to the main processing facility;
* Mill throughput rate of 2,400 tpd for the gravity wash plant for the saprolite material and 1,200
tpd for the historical tailings material;
* A NPAG waste rock borrow area to provide initial quantity of NPAG waste rock for the WMF
embankment;
* Two-year pre-production mining period to coincide with WMF Initial Stage development.
The open pit mine production period covers the extraction of material from the NPAG borrow area, historical tailings area, and the El Alacrán open pit with two (2) years of pre-production (prior to process plant start-up), approximately 14.02 years of production, which includes approximately six (6) months of stockpile reclaim.
During pre-production, the ore material will be hauled to designated stockpiles. The historical tailings will be stockpiled near the gravity wash plant but separate from the saprolite material. The saprolite ore material will be ........