The Prestea-Bogoso mineralization occurs at the southern end of the Ashanti Greenstone Belt, where 11 gold deposits, mined or under exploration, are localized principally along three steep to subvertical major crustal structures. Rock assemblages from the southern area of the Ashanti Belt were formed during a period spanning from 2,080 to 2,240 million years (Ma) with the Sefwi Group being the oldest rock package and the Tarkwa sediments being the youngest. The Ashanti Belt is host to numerous gold occurrences, which are believed to be related to various stages of the Eoeburnean and Eburnean deformational events.

The geology of the Prestea mine site is divided into four main litho-structural assemblages, which are fault bounded and steeply dipping to the west. This suggests that the contacts are structurally controlled and that the litho structural assemblages are unconformable. These packages are, from the eastern footwall to the western hanging wall, the Tarkwaian litho structural assemblage, the tectonic breccia assemblage, the graphitic Birimian sedimentary assemblage, and the undeformed Birimian sedimentary assemblage.

At Prestea, the principal structure is the mineralized quartz vein, known as the Main Reef, which is relatively continuous and has been modelled and mined over a strike length of some 6 km and to a depth of approximately 1,450 m below surface (35 Level [L]). The subordinate West Reef and East Reef, in the immediate hanging wall and footwall, respectively, of the former structure, are discontinuous. West Reef occurs some 200 m into the hanging wall of the Main Reef structure and, at present, is known to occur over a strike length of 800 m and has currently been defined by underground drilling between 550 to 1,150 m below topography as far as the 30 L.

The planned mining method is mechanized shrinkage mining. This method uses mechanical raise climber technology (Alimak) together with longholes drilled from the raise climber. The method is an advance in terms of safety and productivity from conventional hand-held shrinkage mining. Safety is greatly enhanced both in raise development and stoping operations by having miners protected from rockfalls and removed from working on the broken muck pile. The productivity (per miner) is enhanced by introducing short longholes for stope production.

A typical cycle for Alimak stoping is:

- Raise development in the centre of a stoping block;
- Raise hangingwall rock support;
- Drilling of longhole blast rings;
- Relocation of the raise climber infrastructure to the top of the stoping block, blasting of longhole rings and swell mucking; then,
- Final draw-down mucking and possible waste backfilling.

Small diesel and electric 2 m3 LHD’s will be used for rock haulage from the base of the stoping panel. Mine development will be by hand held drills with LHD mucking. Tramming of ore and waste along the two main levels (17 and 24) will be via an upgraded rail haulage system to Central Shaft.

The rib pillars between stopes are planned to be 3 m wide along the strike of the orebody. Stopes will be 20 m wide separated by these pillars. The pillars will run the entire length of each of the Alimak stopes and are not planned to be recovered.

Mine Ventilation Service’s (MVS) engineers completed a detailed ventilation system design for the mechanized shrinkage mining. The emphasis of the study was to determine ventilation infrastructure and fan duties required for the West Reef development, using phased ventilation modeling.

In areas where diesel equipment is used a factor of 0.08 m3 /s per kW of motor power is used. This is not only for dilution of diesel particulate matter but also for dilution of heat and dust.

The Prestea Underground (PUG) workings extend over a distance of 6 km along strike and down to a maximum depth of about 1,450 m below surface. The two primary shafts of the Prestea mine are the Central and Bondaye shafts.

The Central shaft is the primary access to the underground mining levels and it extends to a depth of 1,238 m below surface to 30 Level (L). Numerous levels were developed off the shaft to provide access to the Main Reef stoping areas. Traditional narrow vein mining methods were employed, primarily shrinkage stoping and captive cut and fill. Run of mine (RoM) material and waste were trammed to the Central shaft to loading pockets located below 20 L, 25 L, and 30 L, which served to load the RoM into skips for conveyance to the surface bins. The total capacity of the system at its peak may have been around 1,300 to 1,600 t/day.

The Bondaye shaft extends to a depth of 1,103 m, but unlike the Central shaft there is no dedicated rock handling system at Bondaye, and cars were loaded into the cages and raised to surface.

In addition to the Central and Bondaye shafts, there are several internal shafts. The No. 4 and No. 6 shafts are located to the south of the Central shaft. No. 4 shaft extends from 23 L to 35 L and was used as the primary access to 35 L, the lowest developed level in the mine. No. 6 shaft extends from 24 L to 31 L.

Ore from the PUG West Reef is trucked to GSR’s Bogoso operation, a distance of approximately 15 km, where the ore will be processed through the existing process facility producing 2,480 kg/a or 80,000 oz/a of gold at an overall recovery of 94%.

The processing facility at Bogoso consists two plants to separately process refractory and nonrefractory (oxide) ores. As the PUG ore is non- refractory ore it will be processed through a modified Oxide circuit that utilizes conventional CIL for gold recovery. The circuit includes the following unit processes:

- Run-of-mine (RoM) receiving
- Crushing
- Milling and classification circuit (cyclones)
- Gravity concentration
- Thickening
- Feed storage tanks
- Carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit
- Upgrade / refurbishment of high intensity cyanide leach reactor (Acacia)
- Gold room and recovery
- A new CIL tailings disposal line
- Services (compressed air, instrument air, oxygen, g ........