Technology and Approach

Operations

The main characteristic of the San Cristóbal mineral deposit is its mineralization in the form of thin veins, veinlets and disseminations that together form a low-grade mineral deposit. Through open-pit exploitation, enormous volumes of material are moved with the aid of modern heavy equipment specially designed for this type of operations.

The Operations Management supervises the whole operation, including the following tasks: overall planning, reticulation of the area to be exploited, blast hole drilling, coordination of lab assays of samples from new areas, delimitation of the mineralized blocks, extraction and transport of materials.

Good planning is a critical component of the mining process at Minera San Cristóbal.

Advanced techniques are used for sampling, laboratory analyses, geological mapping and topographical surveys, in order to obtain precise and reliable information about the mine.

The data and information of the studies are administered and analyzed with software package MineSight, which is the basis for all planning and all operations. The software generates three-dimensional models of the mine reserves, the types of mineralization and the access roads to the open pit. This ensures a more effective mining operation while at the same time minimizing the environmental impact of the operation.

The Mine Control center, which uses the latest software, is responsible for a complete and computerized control using GPS devices of the whole mining process, from extraction to transportation to the processing plant.