OPERATIONS Americas Region
CERRO CORONA | SALARES NORTE | |||||
Mining method | Open pit | Open pit | ||||
Operational infrastructure | Cerro Corona mine operates one open pit and one copper-gold flotation plant. The mining administration and maintenance facilities are located at the mine. | Infrastructure consists of mine and plant facilities, warehouse, camp, offices, on-site power station, fuel station, a potable water plant and water treatment plant. Water will be supplied from a well field 12km from the project. | ||||
Mineral processing and TSFs |
The processing plant consists of a conventional primary crushing, semi-autogenous grind (SAG)/ball
milling and flotation circuit to generate a copper-gold concentrate. The final concentrate is thickened
and filtered before being stockpiled for road transport (380km) to the Salaverry port for shipment to
copper smelters in Japan and Germany. The thickened rougher flotation tails and the cleaner
scavenger flotation tails are transferred individually to the TSF.
TSF embankments are constructed in a downstream/centreline manner and located downstream from the process plant over the Las Gordas and Las Águilas gorges. The embankments (Las Gordas, Las Águilas and La Hierba) are being constructed progressively with borrow materials from limestone quarries. The embankments contain a clay core constructed from pit material (oxide material). The TSF has a remaining LoM storage capacity of ~26.4Mt up to 3,803m relative level (mRL). |
The process plant, designed to process 2Mtpa, will be located south-east of the main pit at ~4,500m
amsl. Ore will be crushed, milled and thickened with thickener underflow pumped to cyanide leaching.
Slurry from the leaching stage will feed a counter-current washing and solid liquid separation process
through a two-stage counter-current decantation (CCD) circuit. Metals in the solution will be recovered
by zinc precipitation in the Merrill-Crowe process. Soluble gold and silver remaining in the tailings
slurry obtained from the underflow of the second CCD stage will be scavenged by a CIP circuit.
The dry stack TSF, located above the south mine WSF, has a total design capacity of 24Mt. Filtered tailings will be transported by trucks to the TSF, spread and allowed to dry to near its specific moisture content before being compacted. |
Cerro Corona mine – Peru
Cerro Corona’s life extension to 2030 is based on accelerated mining, enabled by the provision of waste storage capacity and extensive stockpile management so that from 2025 onwards, when the stockpile balance peaks, the LoM plan is based on ore processed from stockpiles with in-pit tailings disposal.
A study to assess the viability of further life extensions was initiated in 2021, focusing on a potential east wall pit cutback and further assessment of TSF and waste storage facility (WSF) capacities. These ongoing studies necessitated additional geotechnical drilling and pit wall mapping to define the morphology of low-competency limestones.
PROJECT
Salares Norte – Chile
Salares Norte is a high-grade, epithermal gold-silver, open-pit deposit situated in the High Andes of northern Chile. During April 2020, Gold Fields’ Board formally approved development of the Salares Norte project on the back of the positive FS and the approval of the EIA by the Chilean authorities. Salares Norte is expected to meaningfully change the future profile of Gold Fields by accelerating growth in production and reducing AIC for the Group. The project remains on schedule and within budget with first gold production expected during Q1 2023. Once operational, average annual production is forecast to be ~350koz gold-equivalent for the first 10 years.
Salient points
MINERAL RESOURCES
MINERAL RESERVES
Cerro Corona 99.53% and Salares Norte, 100%
AMERICAS REGION MINERAL RESOURCES AND RESERVES 2021 PDF - 21MB |
Luis A. Rivera
Executive Vice President:
Americas Region
Mr. Rivera joined Gold Fields in October 2016. Prior to joining Gold Fields, Mr. Rivera was, since 2014, the Vice-President of Operations for Las Bambas and before that, since 2013, was the General Manager of Copper Operations for Glencore Peru and, since 2012, Executive General Manager for all Xstrata Copper Operations in Peru. His career also includes 5 years as General Manager of the large Copper Tintaya and Antapaccay operations, as well as 11 year experience in the Xstrata Copper Operations of Minera Alumbrera, a large gold – copper operation in North Argentina, where he became Tech Services Manager after servicing as Chief Engineer and Senior Geologist. Mr. Rivera has over 28 years’ experience in the copper and gold mining industry, in large open pit copper project and operations in Peru and Argentina, including his direct involvement and leadership in the merge & acquisition of Falconbridge Inc. and BHP Tintaya S.A. by Xstrata Copper as well as the sale of Las Bambas Project by Glencore.