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| Mining Operation In Copper Mountain Mine |
The Copper Mountain Mine project is located 20 km south of Princeton British Columbia, Canada and has a workforce of 420 employees. It covers around 18,000 acres of mining land held under a combination of 135 crown grants, 132 mineral claims, 14 mining licences, eight cell mineral claims and 12 fee simple lots. The property is accessible by a combination of highways and paved roads, and it is close to the port of Vancouver that provides service for shipment of copper concentrates.
Video The Mining Process at Copper Mountain Mine in Princeton British Columbia, Canada
MINERAL DEPOSIT AND DRILLING IN COPPER MOUNTAIN MINE
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| Mineral deposits from drilling programme Copper Mountain mine |
The Nicolo group rocks have a stratigraphic thickness of approximately 7.5km and form a 25km-wide band extending from the Canada – US border north to beyond Kamloops lake. The Copper Mountain alkalic porphyry copper gold camp exists in the eastern volcanic belt of the Nicolo Group.
The majority of the copper–gold mineralization at Copper Mountain is in the form of veins, fracture fillings, and disseminations within volcanic rocks of the Nicola Group (Upper Triassic) and within intrusive rocks of the Lost Horse Suite (Lower Jurassic). Mineralization has strong continuity, in the vertical direction and dominant vein and fracture orientations vary with location.
Each mineralization type in Copper Mountain mine can be found in all pit areas, but each pit is unique with respect to the relative quantities and character of mineralization type. The alteration that is associated with each mineralization type has some degree of variation as well. Each pit area also has distinctive Cu:Ag:Au ratios.
The drilling programme Copper Mountain mine was started in January 2007, focusing on providing additional verification of historical drill data, testing areas between the existing open pits. And at the end of 2007, the company also concluded Titan deep 24 penetration geophysical survey on 13km square area over exiting pits.
Copper Mountain Mining Corporation completed drill exploration programme in 2007 and 2008 by drilling around 106,000m. The drilling and exploration programme's focus was to determine a new merged pit known as super pit which is more wide, deep and big to access additional mineralisation at depth. In addition, a drill data density for assisting upgrading of classification during resource estimation was also conducted.
The company identified a potential Super pit and focused on existing pit 1, pit 2 and pit 3. To assess adjoining area and test the mineralisation at depth, a two-phased 10,000m drilling programme began in August 2010. In the first phase, additional drill information is used to obtain a detailed mine design and upgrade the mine optimisation in the Oriole deposit and Pit 2 zone. The current exploration program is focused on testing some peripheral titan 24 anomalies outside the current mine plan including Oriole, Virgina, and Voigt zones.
MINING OPERATION AND ORE PROCESSING IN COPPER MOUNTAIN MINE
The Copper Mountain Mining Corporation combining three existing open pits into one large super pit over time. Destruction of mineral rock in the open pit mine area using drilling and blasting system, And then mining operations in Copper Mountain using equipment two Komatsu PC 8000 hydraulic shovels for to dredge rock minerals on the floor of the open pit, thirteen 240 ton Komatsu 830E haul trucks as a means of conveyance of mineral rock from open pit mining to processing plant , one Komatsu WA 1200 loader, two PV271 Atlas Copco rotary drills, one PV351 Atlas Copco rotary drill, and a fleet of support equipment. In addition, the mine acquired an Ex 5500 Hitachi hydraulic shovel, five 260 ton haul trucks, and a PV 351 drill.
Mining plant Copper Mountain utilizes a conventional crushing to destroy the rock minerals, and then grinding with Semi Autogenous Grinding ( SAG mills ) , and flotation system to produce copper concentrates with plus gold and silver. The mine processing plan focuses on processing the higher–grade ore in the first twelve years, with lower grade material being sent to stockpiles for blending and processing later in the mine's life.
The processing plant facility in Copper Mountain mine is designed to operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year with a 92% mechanical availability including pre–scheduled downtime for equipment maintenance. Concentrates are exported via the port of Vancouver to Mitsubishi smelters in Japan for treatment and sale.
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