The Caravel mineral processing plant is a conventional design suitable for treating porphyry-style copper ores. Operating examples are common throughout the Americas, including three operating plants in western Canada of similar scale and ore characteristics.

Caravel Minerals has undertaken significant analysis and independent review of the process flowsheet since the completion of the Project Pre-Feasibility Study, culminating in the delivery of a simplified and enhanced process flowsheet with no technical gaps.

The process flowsheet adopted as the base case for the Caravel Project Definitive Feasibility Study is:

• Run-of-mine ore is crushed in two stages using a single primary gyratory crusher followed by two secondary cone crushers, producing minus 45mm material which is conveyed to a crushed ore storage stockpile prior to downstream processing.
• Two High-Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGR’s) provide energy efficient dry grinding capacity to a 5mm feed size, suitable for two large ball mills which provide the final size reduction to 0.18mm prior to beneficiation in the downstream copper-molybdenum flotation circuit.

• The copper beneficiation circuit consists of six rougher/scavenger flotation cells followed by rougher concentrate grinding to liberate additional copper and three stages of final cleaner flotation to produce a final 25% Cu concentrate. Rougher and cleaner flotation tailings are thickened and pumped to a Tailings Management Facility (TMF) sized for the 25+ year mine life. Water reclaimed from the TMF is returned to the process water storage pond.
• A Molybdenum Recovery Circuit (MRC) separates molybdenum from the copper concentrate using three stages of flotation to produce a 50% Mo by-product to the copper concentrate. Both concentrates are thickened and filtered prior to transport by road to port.

The process flowsheet has a targeted recovery range of 88-90% for copper and 60% for molybdenum.