The Didipio Mine, located in the host community of Barangay Didipio, operates in approximately 334 hectares of land, representing 34% of its Partial Declaration of Mining Feasibility (PDMF) area.
Infrastructure
The construction of the Didipio Mine started in 2008, with early works including road access. Construction of major infrastructure commenced in 2011, and commercial production of the Didipio Mine was declared on April 1, 2013. The open pit mine was completed to final design in May 2017 after five years of mining. The underground project commenced in March 2015 with the construction of the underground portal and continued development occurring since then and first ore stoping occurring in December 2017. First production from the underground mine was achieved in January 2018.
Infrastructure includes a tailings storage facility (TSF), workshops, camp, water treatment plant (WTP), paste backfill plant and ore processing facilities.
The Company’s TSF has been designed to accommodate the life-of-mine tailings requirement, net of the paste backfill. The TSF was designed based on the criteria of the ANCOLD and Philippine regulations.
Since 2018, all water used in the processing plant is recycled, utilizing both the overflow water from thickeners and decant water from the TSF tailings pond.
The Didipio Mine’s paste fill plant is the Philippines’ first fully automated plant, which reduces the TSF capacity requirement. The plant also enables the Company to implement a ground support strategy for regional stability as the backfill ensures that no large-scale underground void is left after ore extraction from underground mining operations.
Operational Standards
Underground mining continues to employ Long Hole Open Stoping (LHOS) with paste fill at a mining rate of ~1.9Mtpa, with the mill feed supplemented by surface stockpiles to achieve a combined processing rate of approximately 4.0Mtpa.
Through automation, digital and process transformation, the Didipio Mine is a model of a modern operation delivering greater safety, higher efficiencies, and increased productivity.
Surface remote bogging is employed, which aims to increase the stope production rate and enhances safety by removing personnel from hazardous areas, and digitised task management, aimed at increasing equipment utilisation and efficiency. Personal safety beacons monitor mine employees’ locations in real-time, enabling rapid accounting for personnel in emergencies. A fibre optic backbone and Wi-Fi-based network, meanwhile, enables these underground mining technologies.
Using clean production technology, recovery of copper and gold at Didipio is achieved from the use of froth flotation following a conventional SAG Mill-Ball Mill pebble crushing grinding circuit and gravity gold recovery circuit. The process plant has been successfully running for nine years.