Fruta del Norte is an underground mining operation providing ore to an on-site processing plant with a current throughput capacity of 4,400 tonnes per day (tpd).

The Fruta del Norte mine is accessed by two declines, K’Isa and Kuri. The primary mining method is transverse long hole stoping and some sections may be mined via drift and fill methods. Paste back fill is utilized to fill in the exhausted stopes and later in the mine life, cemented rock fill will be used as an auxiliary method.

Ore from Fruta del Norte is processed using a gravity-floatation-leach circuit. Following conventional grinding in a SAG and ball mill circuit, the ore is passed through a gravity circuit to recover the free gold. Following this, ore passes through a floatation circuit to recover the gold entrained with sulphides. The tailings or waste stream from the floatation circuit is processed in a conventional Carbon-in-Leach (CIL) circuit. As a result of this circuit the plant produces both a gold concentrate and doré. Gold concentrate is trucked to the port of Guayaquil in lined 20-foot sea containers and is shipped to smelters for further processing in Europe, Canada, Taiwan and China. The doré is transported to Europe for refining. Tailings from the processing plant is pumped to either the paste plant or the Tailings Storage Facility (TSF).