Gold Fields

The Cerro Corona deposit, centred at latitude 6° 45’ S, longitude 78° 37’ W, is at elevations ranging from approximately 3,600m to 4,000m amsl. It is located 1.5km west north-west of the village of Hualgayoc, some 80km by road north of the departmental capital of Cajamarca, and approximately 600km north north-west of the capital city of Lima.

The mining concessions owned by Cerro Corona cover an area of 4,365ha while the surface rights cover 1,291ha. Cerro Corona is owned by GFLC, which holds 99.53% of the economic interest.

Cerro Corona mine operates one open pit and one copper-gold plant.

The processing plant at Cerro Corona includes the typical equipment for a copper flotation plant, with a design capacity of 6.7Mtpa. The crushing plant comprises two jaw crushers in parallel and two Abon Sizer in each line. Crushed product is conveyed to a two-stage grinding circuit consisting of a SAG mill and a ball mill, in closed circuit with cyclone cluster for classification. Cyclone overflow represents the final milled product and feeds the flotation plant. The rougher flotation produces a bulk concentrate and final tails, which is then reground and sent to cleaner flotation. The cleaner tails go to scavenger flotation, while the concentrate, with a grade of over 20% copper, goes to the next process.

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, Germany and Bulgaria. The thickened rougher flotation tails and the tails from the cleaner-scavenger flotation are sent by gravity to the tailings storage facility.

There are no extreme climate conditions that may affect mining operations.

The Cerro Corona copper-gold deposit is typical of porphyry-style mineralisation comprising stock work quartz-pyrite-marcasite-chalcopyrite ± bornite ± hematite ± magnetite veining, hosted by intensely altered intrusive lithologies of diorite to dacitic composition. The regional geology of the area is described in the Americas regional section.

The deposit consists of an intrusive diorite to quartz-diorite dated at Mid-Miocene age (14.4 ±0.1 Ma). The intrusive is primarily emplaced along sub-vertical faults. Limestone alteration varies from siliceous in the south of the deposit to marbling in the west.

Based on the latest PFS and increased Mineral Resource conversion, it is estimated that the current Mineral Reserve will be depleted in 2030, an additional seven years to the current LoM.