The Project area is located at the northeast end of the Archaean Abitibi Sub-Province, comprising east-west trending volcanic and sedimentary “greenstone belts”. The volcanic-sedimentary belts are folded and faulted and typically have a steep dip, younging away from major intervening domes of intrusive rocks. Major, crustal-scale, east-trending fault zones are prominent in the Abitibi greenstone belt. In the Chibougamau area, a large layered mafic complex (the Lac Dore Complex or LDC) has been emplaced into the volcaniclastic stratigraphy.

The LDC is a stratiform intrusive complex composed primarily of (meta-) anorthosite with lesser amounts of gabbro, anorthositic gabbro, pyroxenite, dunite and harzburgite. The anorthosite represents 70–90% by volume of the lithologies present within the LDC. A younger granite emplaced in the centre of the LDC obscures the mafic lithologies in this area. The LDC stratigraphy comprises four zones (Allard, 1976):
• The lowermost anorthositic zone composed of anorthosite and gabbro
• The layered zone composed of bands of ferro-pyroxenite, magnetite-bearing gabbro, magnetitite (rock consisting of at least 90% magnetite) (containing titanium and vanadium) and anorthosite
• The granophyre zone (at the top) composed of soda-rich leuco-tonalite
• The border zone in contact with the surrounding sedimentary and volcanic rocks.

The Project area itself straddles the contact between the mafic magmatic rocks of th ........

Mont Sorcier is modelled to be mined using traditional truck and loader open pit mining methods, focusing on extraction of magnetite mineralized material and waste materials. During its life, two mining areas will be developed – a large open pit on the north side of the mine and a smaller pit to the south. The south mining area may operate up to four distinct open pits:
• South Main (the largest of the south area pits);
• South 1, 2 and 3 (relatively small pits to the east of the South Main pit).

The mine will need to support a processing plant with nominal output of 5 Mtpa of dry concentrate. The plant recovery will depend on quality of mineralized material and concentration of the primary mineral – magnetite. Based on an average magnetite concentration in the mineralized material, it is expected the pits will deliver up to 15 Mtpa of mineralized material on average. The waste mining will be on average at about 13 Mtpa, with the maximum currently predicted not to exceed 45 Mtpa. This combined with relatively low waste to mineralized material strip ratio, would allow for bulk mining of both waste and mineralized material.

The material is mostly fresh and therefore drilling and blasting will need to sufficiently fragment the rock to allow for efficient loading and hauling of rock from the pits. The near vertical dip of the mineralization is in favour of a simple bulk mining operation. It is expected that the dilution and mineralized material lo ........

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The processing facilities include a beneficiation plant (Concentrator), designed to produce 5.0 Mtpa of magnetite concentrate over a 37-year mine life. The run of mine (ROM) material is based on a magnetite plant weight recovery of 45%.

The concentrator operates on a 365 days per year, 24 hours per day schedule with 80% crusher plant equipment utilization and 90% main concentrator area equipment utilization. Concentrator feed is assumed to be 97% solid, including 3% of moisture content.

The process is divided into the following areas:
- Crushing area;
- Grinding and magnetic separation area;
- Concentrate dewatering and handling area;
- Reagents area;
- Tailings thickening area;
- Utilities and services area.

The crushed mineralized material is transferred from the crushed stockpile by apron feeders onto the crushed stockpile conveyor. The later reports to the feed bin of the primary grinding unit comprising high pressure g ........