Mining and exploration company acquires Bibiani gold mine

Mining and exploration company acquires Bibiani gold mine

Aim-listed gold-mining and exploration company Central African Gold (CAG) announced its acquisition of the Bibiani gold mine and related assets and liabilities ”“ including a prospecting licence in Ghana from Anglo- Gold Ashanti (AGA) ”“ in December, 2006.

The acquisition, which immediately provided the company with production and revenue generation, is part of CAG’s growth strategy, which is aimed at rapidly building the company into a significant African gold producer with extensive world-class exploration and production assets.

The mine, located 250 km northwest of Accra, is situated in the Sefwi-Bibiani Greenstone Belt.

This belt is one of the most prospective in Ghana, and also hosts Newmont’s Ahafo (about 16-million-ounce resource) and Red-back’s Chirano (about 2,3-million-ounce resource) operations.

CAG aims to restate the resource through exploration, re-establish hard rock mining operations and develop new mining opportunities on the mining lease and PL through exploration.

Importantly, there is a well-maintained 2,7-million-ton-a-micrometre processing facility already on site (built eight years ago at a cost of around $50-mil- lion).

CAG intends to continue with the retreatment of the current tailings at a rate of about 4 000 oz of gold recovered a month to ensure immedi- ate revenue generation.

It will commence with a phased capitalisation of the underground mining operation as soon as practi- cable.

The board’s business plan sees underground production beginning during the third quarter of 2007 with a build-up to an initial target tonnage of 100 000 t/m by the third quarter of next year.

Since its discovery in 1902, Bibiani has yielded almost four-million ounces of gold from both underground and openpit mining opera-tions.

The board intends to increase Bibiani’s resource base from its stated inventory gold, as at Dec-ember 31, 2005, of 100 000 oz of ore reserve and 900 000 oz of mineral resource (JORC compliant) as stated in AGA’s audited 2005 accounts.

Restating the resources should, firstly, result in an increased resource base that is in line with the company’s business plan and its intention to develop the main underground operation.

Secondly, restating should provide a full understanding of the data density in the model, which will enable prioritisation of underground drilling and sampling for conversion of resources to reserves and identification of new resources.

Detailed mine planning and scheduling will be updated in accordance with the new model.

”CAG’s strategy is to become a leading midtier operating gold company, with an initial target of about 200 000 oz of annualised low-cost gold production and 7,5-million ounces of resource by the end of 2008. ”The acquisition of Bibiani means a great deal for us and complements our existing exploration portfolio in Mali and Botswana. ”Our focus is on geologically attractive gold regions and we are currently evaluating other opportu-nities in order to fulfil our growth objectives,” said CAG’s CEO Greg Hunter.

Source: www.engineeringnews.co.za

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