Technical Report for the Maricunga Gold Mine - Kinross Gold

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Kinross Gold CorporationMaricunga Mine Technical ReportIn September 2002, in response to rising gold prices, Compañia Minera Maricunga (CMM)approved an Exploration Program designed to increase the reserve base of the MaricungaProject to a level sufficient to support resumption of active mining. The drilling completed in2002-2003 focused largely on definition drilling for a $350 gold pit design.The exploration program ran from September 2002 to June 2003. During this period, a totalof 262 drill holes (51,478 meters) of drilling were completed. The drilling focused onincreasing the confidence level of the known mineralization below the current Verde pits aswell as increasing the confidence level in the mineralization at the nearby Pancho deposit,located approximately 2.0 km to the northeast. Much of the 2002 – 2003 drilling wasdiamond drill core, allowing geologists an opportunity to clearly delineate geological andalteration features affecting gold mineralization and recovery.The information was compiled and incorporated in new mineral resource and mineralreserve estimates for Verde and Pancho. The reserves formed the basis of a detailedengineering study examining the economics of the project assuming a capital investment of$101.1 million to upgrade the existing infrastructure, allowing the plant to process 40,000tonnes per day of Verde ore and 35,000 tonnes per day of Pancho ore. The capitalinvestment was based on preliminary design and first-principle engineering.The Maricunga Mine resumed full production in October 2005 at a mining rate of 40,000 tpd.Total production of 233,000 ounces from 14,333,000 tonnes at 0.74 g/t Au is reported for2007. Only data below the year-end 2007 topographic surface was used to complete thenew resource model and reserve estimate.Both the 2002-2003 and 2006 drill programs were carefully supervised, employing industrybest practices and rigid quality management procedures in the collection and managementof the field data. In addition, all historic data for the project was subjected to detailedverification programs where the data in the relational database was verified against originallogs, survey calculation sheets and original assay certificates. The result is a duly verifieddatabase containing data of high quality and free of gross errors and omissions. Thisdatabase was then used to estimate mineral resource and reserves for the project.In early 2006, CMM made the decision to drill at Pancho to better define the mineralresource both laterally and at depth. During the course of 2007, a full review of the geologic12
Kinross Gold CorporationMaricunga Mine Technical Reportinterpretation and the spatial controls of mineralization was undertaken for both Verde andPancho resulting in new resource models to support updated Mineral Resource and MineralReserve estimates.In addition to the analytical data, the 2002-2003 drill program was also used to collectcarefully controlled metallurgical samples from Verde and Pancho. A total of 58 directagitation (bottle roll) and 18 column leach test samples were collected and analyzed. Themetallurgical samples were carefully selected to ensure adequate sample coverage ofvarious grade bins, recovery classes and lithologies. More metallurgical test work wascompleted in 2006 and 2007 with the addition of 19 column tests for Pancho. The datacompiled to date indicates that gold recovery from the Pancho samples tested isapproximately 68% for the sulphide ore and 85% for the oxide ore. This recent test workplus the work completed in 2003 confirms that the gold recovery values used in the 2007reserve estimate are reasonable.In 2007, the SART process was tested for the Pancho ore given the higher concentrations ofcopper present in the ore. Some of the copper minerals are soluble in cyanide solutions andthese minerals consume cyanide reagent and contaminate the leach solution with coppermetal. A feasibility study and pilot testing program were completed by Idesol and SGSLakefield of Santiago. The study considers plant design, performance metrics, operating andcapital costs and implementation strategy. The reserves defined at Pancho consider theapplication of SART.Ore and waste hardness was also tested in 2002-2003. Specific gravity of the various rocktypes was confirmed through extensive field sampling. In 2006, specific gravitymeasurements were also performed on more than 1,500 core samples from Pancho.The resource block models were first updated in 2003 to reflect the lithological modelsdeveloped from observations taken from drill core. At the same time, a new recovery modelwas developed based on the visual logging of oxidation. The visual estimates werecompleted using a well-established scale previously used on the project. In 2006, with theadditional core samples, the surfaces defining oxidation levels were updated (oxide, mixedand sulphide).13
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