Operations

Mining

The majority of the ore is currently mined via long-hole open stoping, which is a highly mechanised and low cost method. Access to the top and bottom of the ore block is established with tunnels, a slot raise is created, and holes are then drilled to blast vertical slabs off the ore block. Once the ore block has been blasted and extracted, the stopes are filled with paste (tailings and cement mix) to stabilise the void and allow extraction of adjoining ore blocks. The minimal waste material mined is either stockpiled underground or trucked to surface.