A new primary mining fleet is planned for IAMGOLD’s Saramacca gold project in Suriname and will consist of one Caterpillar 6030 face shovel, two Komatsu PC2000 backhoes, and one PC1250 excavator with the support of one CAT 993 loader used at the run of mine (ROM) stockpile to load long-haul trucks. The proposed haulage fleet will consist of 20 CAT 785 haul trucks within the pit and 10 Haulmax 3900 trucks from Elphinstone to haul ROM from Saramacca to the Rosebel processing plant.

The deposit is located approximately 30 km southwest of the existing Rosebel (RGM) property where the new ore will be processed. “Due to the significant distance between the Saramacca pit and the Rosebel processing plant, an ore haulage strategy as follows will be enacted: all ore mined ex-pit will be completed by a conventional rigid mine truck and shovel operation and will be stockpiled at the ROM pad. A front end loader will then load long haul trucks which will haul the ore to the Rosebel processing plant via a purpose built haul road. In total, 10 Haulmax 3900 series trucks with a payload of 80 t will be used to for ‘long haul’ route between Saramacca and the Rosebel processing plant. The estimated return cycle time is 94 minutes.”

During the first three years of operation there will also be a lack of mined rock available to construct several waste dump buttresses. Due to this waste rock will be back hauled from the RGM pits. A maximum of ten trucks will be required to haul 2.24 Mt/y of ore at an average productivity of 43 to 49 t/h, respectively for soft to hard rock. A new 23 km purpose built haul road will be constructed between the Mayo deposit and the Saramacca deposit. Long haul trucks from Saramacca traversing this road will then travel along the main RGM haul road with the other RGM traffic and terminate at the main RGM complex.