The ore bodies at New Luika comprise high grade (>6g/t Au), medium grade (3 – 6 g/t Au) and low grade (1 – 3 g/t Au) to average 3.9g/t Au.

The regional geology is characterised by deformed, folded, sheared and metamorphosed paleoproterozoic rocks with major fold axes trending east southeast to west northwest. The following main lithological units occur in the region:

Ilunga Granite Formation
The Ilunga Granite is located in the northern portion of the Lupa Goldfield and is mostly comprised of a medium to coarse grained leucogranite (aplogranite). Biotite and muscovite are commonly associated secondary minerals.

Saza Granite Formation
The Saza Granite is located in the central portion of the Lupa Goldfield and consists of numerous rock types including hornblende rich granites and hornblende-biotite rich granodiorites.

Gneiss Formation
The Gneiss Formation, the main ore bearing host, is the dominant rock unit within the Lupa Goldfield. The Gneiss Formation has been subjected to at least three granitic intrusive events that have given rise to a variety of rock types such as felsitic gneiss, biotite and hornblende granite gneiss, leucocratic granular gneiss. Diorite, granodiorite and granite rocks are evident within the Gneiss Formation.

Mineralised quartz veined targets are hosted within brittle-ductile to ductile deformational features of variable orientation.

The New Luika transitioned to a predominantly underground operation and entered commercial production in June 2017. Since 2017, New Luika’s underground mining activities have delivered a consistent plant feed.

New Luika delivered its highest ever mill feed from underground operations in 2019, with open pits providing supplementary ore feed for three months of the year, in line with the planned mining schedule.

One of the major successes of 2019 was reaching commercial production from the Ilunga Underground Mine on schedule and on budget. Commercial production was declared following net pre-production capital investment of only US$5.0 million and Ilunga is now the third source of high-grade underground feed at New Luika, alongside the Bauhinia Creek and Luika underground deposits.

Underground mining is from Bauhinia Creek, Luika and Ilunga to depths below surface of 350 metres, 315 metres and 250 metres respectively. Mining methods are predominantly long hole open stoping with back fill where warranted.

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The processing is metallurgically simple and conventional involving proven crushing and milling techniques with carbon-in-leach gold extraction delivering robust gold recoveries (average 91% recovery).

New Luika plant capacity expansion
The New Luika plant upgrade will focus on increased ball mill power, with upgrades to other components including an increase to pumping capacity, a tailings discharge system, and additional leach capacity to support the higher throughput and increase operability.

Increased plant capacity will provide New Luika with the flexibility to reduce cut off grades, thus lowering the hurdle for resources to be converted to minable ounces.

Plant capacity expansion is expected to be completed in January 2021 with milled throughput to increase immediately thereafter.

Following commissioning, the annual nameplate processing capacity at NLGM is expected to increase to a baseline of 708Ktpa (current nameplate capacity o ........