Modern Mining September 2017

MINING News

TSX-listed Roxgold Inc, which owns and operates the high-grade Yaramoko under- ground gold mine in Burkina Faso, has reported its financial results for the three- Strong quarterly performance by Yaramoko month period ended June 30, 2017. During the reporting period, the com- pany maintained a lost time injury (LTI) ratio of 0,00 and achieved over 3 million

hours worked LTI free. Gold production totalled 27 970 ounces of gold at an aver- age cash operating cost of US$498 per ounce. The company mined 66 044 tonnes of ore for the quarter including 28 628 tonnes of ore from stoping activities while the plant processed 65 159 tonnes of ore at an average head grade of 12,8 g/t Au. Plant availability was 97,2 % and overall recovery was 99,0 % during the quarter. During the three -month period, Roxgold also commenced construction work at site to facilitate the Bagassi South expansion project and started a drilling programme targeting newly identified geophysical targets along the Bagassi Corridor. Bagassi is located less than 2 km south of the 55 Zone (the site of the cur- rent mine) and the Yaramoko plant. “We are very pleased with the contin- ued strong performance at Yaramoko this quarter where we are on track to deliver at the upper end of our annual production guidance and costs were as expected. Grades were in line with plan, and we anticipate grades to be similar in Q3 ahead of increasing in the fourth quarter,” com- mented John Dorward, President and CEO of Roxgold. Located approximately 200 km south- west of Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, in the the Houndé green- stone region, Yaramoko is a new mine which poured its first gold in May last year with commercial production being declared on 1 October 2016. It is expected to produce between 105 000 and 115 000 ounces in 2017.  feasibility study for an 80 000 oz/a heap- leach operation at the Akyanga deposit resulting in an ungeared NPV (at a dis- count of 8 %) and an IRR of US$171 million and 35 % respectively at a US$1 300/oz gold price. This assumes a contract mining scenario with an initial capital cost estimate of US$87,4 million and a total operating cost of US$628/oz. African Mining Consultants (AMC) recently completed a review and re-inter- pretation of the geological model of the deposit and reported a 1,05 Moz JORC inferred resource at a grade of 2,27 g/t Au (using a 1,5 g/t Au cut-off ) within a lower grade envelope of 1,57 Moz at a grade of 1,65 g/t Au (using a 0,5 g/t cut-off grade). 

The camp at the Yaramoko gold mine in Burkina Faso (photo: Roxgold).

Drill programme underway at DRC gold deposit Premier African Minerals, the London- listed mining and exploration company, has provided an update on Casa Mining Limited (Casa) in which Premier has a 4,5 % interest. Casa is a privately-owned mineral exploration company focused on developing the Akyanga gold deposit, part of the prospective Misisi gold project in the DRC.

Casa has a 71,25 % interest in the Misisi project, which is located in South Kivu, approximately 350 km south of Bukavu and 180 km north of Kalemie in the eastern DRC. In 2014, SRK Consultants (UK) reported an inferredmineral resource at the Akyanga deposit of 5,5 Mt at a grade of 1,5 g/t Au for approximately 272 koz of contained metal. SRK has further reported an inferred transition gold mineral resource of 16,2 Mt at a grade of 1,8 g/t Au for approximately 927 koz of contained metal. MDM Engineering Projects, in con- junction with SRK, completed a scoping

Casa has begun a 5 000-m drilling programme with the objective of increas- ing and upgrading the existing mineral resource estimate. The first 2 200 m of the programme are expected to be completed during October 2017.

12  MODERN MINING  September 2017