Cerro Corona mine - Mining
The Cerro Corona deposit is mined by conventional surface open pit mining methods. The final surface mine area is expected to cover some 950m by 1,050m. The mining operation will extend from the crest of the original Cerro Corona hill, which peaked at 3,964m amsl, to a final depth at around 3,460m amsl.
Mining methods
The current mining operation using open pit methods will be continued on a similar basis utilising a mining contractor. The material movement rate in the new LoM 2030 is variable over the mining schedule and therefore a mining contractor with the ability to mobilise and demobilise additional equipment and personnel offers advantages over an owner-mining alternative. Mining benches are all 10m high and haul roads have a maximum gradient of 10%. All mined material requires drilling and blasting, utilising blast holes with a diameter of 200mm and applying variable powder factors according to rock hardness.
Mine planning and scheduling
Cerro Corona's LoM plan is based on detailed and well informed geological and resource block models. The LoM plan is established from detailed short and long-term mine design and production schedules based on reliable production rates and well defined modifying factors. Planning utilises specialised mine planning software and a customised LoM resource estimation model known as the localised multivariate uniform conditioning model (LMUC), which uses specialised geostatistical software. This is supplemented by a high resolution '3 bench' shorter term resource model.