Highlights:
- Completion of Bagassi South project on schedule and approximately 10% or $2.8m under budget;
- Achieved practical completion of the processing plant expansion;
- Continuing ramp-up of the Bagassi South mine during the first quarter of 2019; commercial production is expected to be achieved in the second quarter 2019;
- Regional exploration drilling has commenced on the Kaho prospect located to the south of Bagassi South.
Roxgold president and chief executive officer John Dorward said: “We have marked yet another significant milestone in providing growth and value to our shareholders with the successful completion of our internally funded Bagassi South project, which has been completed on schedule and under budget.
“We are now looking forward to increasing production at Yaramoko and ramping up to full capacity at both the process plant and Bagassi South where we expect to deliver approximately 150,000 ounces of gold from our Yaramoko operations in 2019.”
The plant expansion increases capacity by nearly 50% from 270,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) or 750 tonnes per day (tpd) to 400,000 tpa or 1,100 tpd. The expansion maintains the simple and robust design philosophy that was implemented originally at the Yaramoko plant which has generated recoveries in excess of 98%. The following upgrades were implemented to facilitate the additional throughput and gold recovery:
A secondary crushing circuit with a throughput of 100 tonnes per hour;
Conversion of the SAG mill to a Ball mill;
Expansion of the carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit, consisting of two extra adsorption tanks and an additional thickener;
Expansion of the gravity circuit designed to recover 70% of head grade consisting of an additional Acacia leach reactor and two electrowinning cells; and
Additional raw water storage and power reticulation infrastructure.
Mine development has commenced at Bagassi South, the second high grade underground mine at Yaramoko, with approximately 668 metres of development completed as of the end of November 2018. As previously reported, first development ore was delivered to the ROM pad in October on schedule. Ramp-up of the mine will continue during the first quarter of 2019, with commercial production expected to be achieved in the second quarter of 2019.
Regional Exploration
Drilling recently commenced at Kaho, located at the southern end of the 55 Zone-Bagassi South Corridor. The RC drilling is testing a >1.5km coincident geochemical and geophysical anomaly defined last season, and which is also located in an interpreted favorable structural position. Preparations are also underway for additional auger drilling in the first quarter of 2019 to extend the Kaho grid further south.
In addition, five drill rigs continue to drill at the 55 Zone focused on infill and extensional drilling of the deposit, with results continuing to support the model.
Source: Company Press Release
