The Meadowbank property comprises a number of Archean-age gold deposits hosted within polydeformed volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Woodburn Lake Group, part of the Western Churchill supergroup in northern Canada.

Three mineable gold deposits, Goose, Portage and Vault (all now mined out), have been discovered along the 25-kilometre long Meadowbank gold trend, and the PDF deposit (a fourth deposit) has been outlined on the northeast gold trend. These known gold resources were within 225 metres of the surface, making the deposits amenable to open pit mining. In addition, two mineable deposits have been discovered at the Amaruq satellite deposit, the Whale Tail and V Zone, which come together at depth northeast of Whale Tail Lake. Both extend from surface, making them amenable to open pit mining. A ramp is being driven between the two deposits and is currently 350 metres below surface, in the footwall of Whale Tail deposit.

The main mineralized occurrences at Amaruq are hosted within a northeast-trending sequence of mafic and ultramafic sub-volcanic to volcanic rocks interlayered with various combinations of fine-grained clastic rocks, chert, graphitic iron-rich mudstone and iron formation. They correspond to mesothermal-type lode-gold mineralization, including (but not restricted to) hybrid, stratiform and vein-type iron-formation-hosted gold deposits.

Mineralization
The Amaruq satellite deposit at Meadowbank is located 50 kilometres northwest of the Meadowbank mine. The Whale Tail deposit is a folded deposit with a defined strike of 2.3 kilometres from surface to a depth of 915 metres locally. The V Zone is a series of parallel stacked quartz vein structures dipping shallowly (30 degrees) near surface and more steeply (60 degrees) at depth, extending to 635 metres locally. Both deposits are open along strike and at depth. Three contrasting styles of mineralization coexist on the Amaruq property. In all three styles, gold is found associated with pyrrhotite and/or arsenopyrite as 25 to 50 micron inclusions or grains along fractures, or simply as free grains in a quartz rich gangue.

The first mineralization style corresponds to occurrences of pyrrhotite-quartz-amphibole-carbonate as layers, lenses and/or disseminations, mostly restricted to the silicate-sulphide iron formations of Whale Tail's north domain. The second mineralization style comprises silica flooding with significant pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, and local pyrite stockwork and disseminations, within a gangue of amphibole-carbonate. The third mineralization style is between decimetres and several metres thick, quartz-sulphide-native gold veins cutting through the whole Mammoth-Whale Tail-V Zone rock sequence. These veins are best developed in the mafic and ultramafic volcanics, where they are hosted in biotite-altered and moderately-to-strongly schistose zones. The overall sulphide content of these veins is generally low (1-5% maximum) and most commonly comprises arsenopyrite, galena, sphalerite, and/or chalcopyrite. These veins seem more abundant and best developed in the hinge zone of the regional fold and seem to be restricted to shallow southeast-dipping, high-strain corridors therein.

The Meadowbank Complex includes the Meadowbank mine and the Amaruq satellite deposit. Mining concluded at the Meadowbank site in 2019. Mining was done by open pit method using excavators and trucks.

All ore at the Meadowbank Complex is now sourced from the Amaruq satellite deposit at Meadowbank. Mining at the Amaruq satellite deposit is by open pit methods using excavators and trucks. The ore is extracted conventionally using drilling and blasting, then hauled by a long haul off-road truck fleet to the mill at the Meadowbank facilities for processing

Commercial production was achieved on September 30, 2019 at the Whale Tail pit. The V Zone (IVR pit) began pre stripping activities in the third quarter of 2020 and achieved commercial production on December 31, 2020.

Pit design
The pit shells produced with the Lerchs-Grossmann algorithm were used as a guideline for the pit designs where mining takes place on 7-m-high benches with a final bench height of 21 m. To maximize the ore recovery and minimize dilution, the 7 m benches will be split-benched and mined in two 3.5-m lifts in ore zones. The pit design includes ramp access to reach the bottom of both open pits. The ramp widths are set to 28.0 m at a gradient of 10%. The ramp width decreases to 21.0 m for single-lane traffic at the pit bottom (last five benches) and the gradient has been increased to 12% for the last three benches in order to reduce stripping. The ramp width includes a protection berm and a drainage ditch.

Whale Tail pit will have final dimensions of 1,100 m long by 650 m wide and 285 m deep. The IVR pit will have two portions: the V0 pit will have final dimensions of 450 m long by 220 m wide and 90 m deep, while the V2 pit will have final dimensions of 320 m long by 320 m wide and 120 m deep.

Amaruq underground project
At the Amaruq underground project, the existing exploration portal and ramp will be used for development and production. The ramp is currently at a depth of approximately 350 metres below surface and in 2022 approximately 4,600 metres of underground development are planned. A traditional truck and scoop tram approach will be used for underground mucking and hauling. Once at surface, ore will be hauled by a long haul off-road truck fleet to the mill at the Meadowbank facilities for processing. Ore from the underground mine will be prioritized for transportation to the Meadowbank Processing Plant as it is expected to have a higher gold content. Underground tailings will be mixed with open pit tailings prior to deposit in-pit at the Meadowbank site.

Long-hole open stoping will be used for mining the Amaruq underground deposit and stopes will be backfilled using cemented rockfill. Testing of cemented rockfill in cold conditions was initiated in 2019 and confirmed the applicability of the assumptions used for the project.

In the first half of 2022, the Company is focusing on the Amaruq underground project’s operational readiness. The extraction of a test stope is planned for the second quarter of 2022 and commercial production is expected to be achieved in the second half of 2022.

The ore from the Amaruq satellite deposit at Meadowbank is transported to the Meadowbank facilities with a long haul offroad truck fleet. The ore is dumped into the gyratory crusher or into stockpiles designated by ore-type. The feed from the primary crusher is conveyed to the cone crusher in a closed circuit with a vibrating screen. The crushed ore is delivered to the coarse ore stockpile and ore from the stockpile is conveyed to the mill. The grinding circuit is comprised of a primary SAG mill operated in open circuit and a secondary ball mill operated in closed circuit with cyclones. A portion of the cyclone underflow stream is sent to the concentrator, which separates the heavy minerals from the ore. The grinding circuit incorporates a gravity process to recover free gold and the free gold concentrate is leached in an intensive cyanide leach-direct electrowinning recovery process.

A highpressure grinding roll (“HPGR”) unit at the Meadowbank mill is expected to be commissioned by the second quarter of 2022. The conveyor that feeds from the dome ore stockpile to the SAG mill will be modified so that it can feed a splitter which can either feed the HPGR or be bypassed to the SAG if the HPGR is not available. A new conveyor will feed a screen for oversize material and the remaining ore will directly fall to the HPGR feed chute to be crushed into a smaller size. The HPGR product and screened oversize particles are then fed into the existing SAG mill feed chute for primary grinding. The HPGR crusher will be housed in a newly constructed building near the existing Pebble Crusher Building.

Regrind mill
A 700-kW Outotec HIGmill with a 5000-litre grinding chamber is the chosen technology for the regrind application at Meadowbank. The HIGmill product is only pumped to a main launder; it is then combined with the gravity tails and gravity-fed to the thickener.

The process design at the Meadowbank mill consists of two-stage crushing, grinding, gravity concentration, cyanide leaching and gold recovery in a CIP circuit. Gold-plated cathodes and gravity concentrate are smelted in an induction furnace and poured as doré bars.

The mill was designed to operate year-round, with an annual design capacity of 3.1 million tonnes (8,500 tonnes per day). The addition of a secondary crusher in 2011 increased the overall capacity in the mill to 3.6 million tonnes processed per year (9,840 tonnes per day). Since the installation of the secondary crusher, the plant has consistently exceeded 8,500 tonnes per day. Significant metallurgical testing has been conducted on samples from the Amaruq satellite deposit since 2014 to confirm its amenability to processing at the Meadowbank mill and the Meadowbank mill successfully processed ore from both Whale Tail and V Zone deposits in 2020.

The ore from the Amaruq satellite deposit at Meadowbank i ........