Shallow Open Pit Designs
Three, closely-spaced open pits are in the proposed mine designs - the Portage, Vault and Goose Island pits. The shallow pits are planned to be mined to a maximum depth of 170 metres. Open pit extraction offers lower capital cost, low risk mining and high flexibility, compared to underground extraction.

The Portage proposed pit design encapsulates four contiguous gold deposits including the Third Portage, North Portage, Connector Zone and Bay Zone. The Vault pit is to be located 5 kilometres north of the Portage pit and the Goose Island pit 400 metres south of the Portage pit.