The Twin Hills Project is located in an area of known gold deposits hosted within the inland arm of the Pan African Neoproterozoic Damara Belt, a northeast-striking Neoproterozoic fold, thrust, and metamorphic belt. It reflects a Neoproterozoic rifting-accretionary event between the Congo Craton to the north and the Kalahari Craton to the south. Peak deformation within the Damara Belt occurred between 500 Ma and 530 Ma. The Damara Belt comprises a gently folded Northern Zone, a Central Zone and a Southern Zone.

Mineralization
Styles Orogenic gold deposits occur in Archaean to Tertiary aged metamorphic belts where accretion or collision has added to or thickened continental crust. The deposits are generally hosted by volcanic and turbiditic sequences that have been metamorphosed to greenschist or less commonly amphibolite facies. The deposits are generally interpreted to form late in the orogenic cycle from mid to lower-crustal metamorphic fluids. The gold ores develop syn-kinematically with at least one stage of the major deformation of the country rocks. They inevitably have a strong structural control involving faults or shear zones, folds, and other areas of competency contrasts. The deposits show vertical dimensions up to 1–2 km with strong lateral zonation of wall-rock alteration, normally potassium, arsenic, antimony, large-ion lithophile elements, CO2, and sulphur, with additions of sodium or calcium particularly in rocks of amphibolite facies. Proxima ........

The Twin Hills Gold Project will use conventional open pit mining methods, with the ore zone and waste zone being drilled and blasted at 10 m benches and ore material being loaded selectively in 5 m flitches if necessary. Ore and waste will be loaded with hydraulic excavators and hauled by diesel-powered trucks to the primary crusher, ROM pad stockpile, low-grade stockpile or waste dump.

The Project is planned as a multi-pit mining operation with seven pushbacks in the Main Pit design (Twin Hills Central & Bulge mineralised domains) and one pushback each in the three different Satellite Pits (Clouds, Twin Hills West, and Clouds West mineralised domains), to be mined in different phases throughout the LOM. No equipment size trade-offs were performed during the PFS, and it was assumed that a contractor mining model would be deployed with 100-t class haul trucks and suitably sized loading equipment. The medium-sized equipment increases flexibility and allows better loading selectivity, limiting dilution and mining losses. The primary equipment will be supported by an array of secondary and support equipment. This chapter gives a broad overview of the Project’s mining methods.

Production Schedule
A schedule was produced with a maximum material movement of approximately ~ 42 Mtpa at peak, with mining taking place for just over 11 years and ore processing over 13 years, with the latter two years dedicated to marginal and low-grade stockpile reclamation a ........

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