Marlin Mine

Overview

The Marlin mine is 100% owned by Montana Explorada de Guatemala, S.A., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldcorp. The Marlin Mine is a conventional milling operation with a combination of open pit and underground mining which began commercial production in December 2005.

Marlin mine is in the western highlands of Guatemala, 48 kilometers southwest of the city of Huehuetenango, approximately 300 kilometers northwest of Guatemala City. The project lies within a highly prospective land package of approximately 100,000 hectares that encompasses the main Marlin deposit and other important mineralized zones. The Marlin mine has both conventional open pit mining and underground mining operations.

The Marlin deposit was discovered in western Guatemala through regional grass-roots exploration in 1998 by Montana Exploradora, S.A. and was later purchased by Francisco Gold Corporation in 2000. In 2002 Francisco Gold Corporation merged into Glamis and effectively transferred control of the Marlin mine to Glamis. Construction of the project commenced in early 2004 after the Guatemalan government issued the necessary environmental permits and licenses.

Location

The Marlin mine is 25 kilometres by air west-southwest of the town of Huchuetenango or 300 kilometres by paved and gravel roads from Guatemala City. Goldcorp has completed substantial improvements on the roads leading into and within the project area.

Geology and Mineralization

The Marlin district is located 15-20 kilometres south of the Cuilco-Chixoy-Polichic Fault, a major sinistal transform fault that separates the North American and Central American cratons. Tertiary movement is documented to be over 150 kilometres. The Marlin deposit is on a projection of a southern splay off of the Plochic fault system. The northern side of the Polochic fault system contains Mesozoic sediments. The south side of the Polochic fault contains Paleozoic schist, gneiss and granite and a series of Tertiary mafic volcanic eruptive events composed mostly of dacitic to andesitic tuff, lahar and andesitic to basaltic flows. The Marlin deposit is located within the Tertiary mafic eruptive unit. The deposit trends in the same direction as the Polochic fault system.

There are four major lithologic units present at the Marlin site: pyroclastic deposits, marlin andesites, tertiary volcaniclastic sequence and porphyric dykes.

Mining & Operations

Conventional open pit mining methods using loader/truck operations are employed at the open pit. During 2008, a total of 1,697,137 tonnes of ore was mined at an average grade of 2.57 g/t gold and 40.5 g/t silver.

The underground operations use mechanized cut and fill and long hole stopping mining methods with underground loading equipment feeding haul trucks which transport the ore to the surface via ramp access. During the reporting period a total of 554,346 tonnes of ore was mined with an average grade of 9.7 g/t gold and 218.2 g/t silver.

Processing

The mill is designed to treat a minimal 1.82 million tonnes per year of ore. Ore is fed through a crusher prior to being introduced into the grinding circuit. Milling is conducted in a semi-autogenous grinding mill/ball mill circuit. The pulp produced by the milling is subjected to tank leaching with cyanide. After leaching the ore in the large tanks, the pulp is 'washed' in a series of settling units (counter-current decantation). This effectively produces two products: a clear gold and silver bearing solution and also a pulp without precious metal values. The gold and silver solution is sent to the refinery where the metals are precipitated out of solution through the addition of zinc. The precipitate is filtered and smelted to produce dore bars.

Environment

The Marlin Mine employs 1,905 workers, of which 98% are Guatemalan residents.

Goldcorp established the Fundación Sierra Madre (FSM) an organization designed to improve access to and quality of health services, increase economic opportunities by supporting micro-loans, promoting environmental awareness and developing local community capacity. The foundation is working with communities, organizations and women's groups to identify, plan, and implement sustainable economic development initiatives, with the goal of facilitating locally based development that will continue well beyond the life of the mine itself. The foundation has already been very active constructing or improving health clinics, banks, schools, bridges, and water delivery systems.

In addition to the work done by the Foundation, Goldcorp has undertaken additional programs.

Established in 2005, the Asociación de Monitoreo Ambiental Comunitario (AMAC) is an independent and community-based organization that monitors the environmental performance around the Marlin mine. To-date, none of the quarterly water test results show any significant adverse impacts related to mining activity from the Marlin mine. The Marlin mine's Sustainable Development Department directly promoted and provided funding for 30 community projects in 2009.

The Incentivos Forestales ? Forestry Incentive ? finances reforestation in and outside of the mine site.

Since 2003, Goldcorp has supported teacher training as a way to increase the number of children who can attend school in Guatemala. This has led to higher enrollment and attendance numbers, boosting enrollment up to 71% in some communities. Environmental Initiatives.

The Marlin Mine is implementing an Environmental Management System (EMS) designed to promote continuous improvement in the environmental management of the operation. The EMS concentrates on four phases: policy and planning, implementation, evaluation, and review and Improvement.

Reforestation

The Marlin mine reforestation campaign is part of the Forestry Management Plan approved by the Guatemalan Instituto Nacional de Bosques (National Institute of Forests; INAB). Reforestation was described in this Plan as compensation for the direct impact of tree cutting within the mine area footprint. The compensation requirement was to reforest 190 ha which was completed during the first two years of the reforestation campaign (2004 and 2005). Marlin has continued reforesting between 10 and 20 ha annually beyond the INAB requirements.

While reforestation is a requirement under Guatemalan law, the Incentivos Forestales (Forest Incentives) program is a voluntary program initiated by Marlin to ensure that planted trees reach maturity. Under this program, private landowners are paid incentives for planting and caring for trees. The incentives are paid for five years. In addition to cash incentives, participating landowners receive technical assistance from the company for ground preparation, fertilizing, pest control and other ongoing tree care services for the first five years. After that period the landowner is responsible for the care of the trees and may manage them for potential benefit (i.e. managed harvesting for firewood).

2009 was the sixth reforestation year with 7.68 hectares being reforested. During 2009 Marlin paid private landowners Q.82,566.00 ($10,320) in forestry incentives. Since the inception of the Forest Incentives program, Marlin has paid over Q. 874,221 ($109,277) to a total of 135 families for planting and caring for trees on their land.