Name: Jinfeng mine.
Location: The Jinfeng mine is located in China’s southern Guizhou province.
Controlling Company: Eldorado Gold, 81%.
Brief History: The Jinfeng deposit was discovered by the No 117 team of Guizhou Metallurgical Design and Research Institute in the 1980s. Sino Gold acquired the deposit in 2001. In 2004, Sino Gold completed a feasibility study on the project, with construction starting in 2005 and commercial production in September 2007. Eldorado acquired the Jinfeng mine through the acquisition of Sino Gold in 2009.
Brief Description: Jinfeng is a contractor-mined openpit and underground gold operation, with an expected mine life of 13 years. The openpit will be fully mined out in 2017. Thereafter, all mine production will come from underground.
The mine uses BIOX technology and a conventional carbon- in-leach circuit to produce gold doré.
Geology/Mineralisation: Jinfeng is a sediment-hosted gold deposit with Carlinlike characteristics. The host rocks are Triassic in age and comprise a folded sequence of calcareous sandstone and mudstone. Folds and faults record at least two periods of superimposed north-east to south-west phases of shortening that alternate with periods of extension; the last phase was likely associated with gold mineralisation.
The main ore controls are broad fault zones that cut the initial phase of folds, but were reactivated during the later fold and thrust event. Gold mineralisation is superimposed on this complex geology, with higher grades developing at fault intersections and within favourable lithologic units.
Mineralisation styles include carbonaceous clay breccia, fault gouge seams and styolitic shear veins, silicified wall rock, breccias and veins with illite-dolomite alteration, as well as quartz-dolomite- orpiment veins and stockwork. Gold occurs in arsenical rims on fine- grained pyrite-marcasite with late arsenopyrite and arsenic-antimony minerals.
Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at December 31, 2014, were 16.53-million tonnes grading 3.81 g/t of gold.
Resources: Total measured and indicated resources as at December 31, 2014, were 21.47-million tonnes grading 3.89 g/t of gold. Inferred resources were 8.08-million tonnes grading 3.78 g/t of gold.
Products: Gold.
Mining Method: Openpit and underground. Underground mining is conducted using overhand cut-and-fill, owing to the poor geotechnical ground conditions.
Major Infrastructure and Equipment: The primiary openpit mine equipment comprises drill rigs, dump trucks and excavators. The contractors also have dozers, front-end loaders, graders, water trucks, fuel trucks and a compacting roller to conduct their work.
The major items of equipment used in Jinfeng’s underground ore and waste mining operations are electric hydraulic drill jumbos, load-haul-dump trucks and mine trucks. Owing to the overhand cut-and-fill mining method, waste development and ore production are similar unit operations using the same mining equipment.
Additionally, utility vehicles for charging, shotcreting, aggregate transport, lifting, road maintenance and dust suppression are all in place and will be increased as required during the ramp-up to full production. The backfill plant also operates two loaders for aggregate feed.
Prospects: Eldorado is exploring in the Jinfeng district and is focused on the area within and immediately adjacent to its mining licence. It is currently exploring for extensions to existing ore zones and applying its understanding of ore controls to define and test new conceptual structural targets.
Surface exploration work at Jinfeng has included soil sampling on the Anbao exploration licence and geological mapping of near-pit areas. The 2015 soil-sampling programme has been completed.
Contact Person: VP investor relations Krista Muhr.
Contact Details:
Eldorado Gold,
tel +1 604 687 4018,
fax +1 604 687 4026,
email kristam@eldoradogold.com, and
website http://www.eldoradogold.com.