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GOLD
February 2015
MODERN MINING
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Ghana’s newest gold mine
Left:
A recent view of the
Asanko Gold Mine site with
concrete pouring underway.
Below:
Earthworks in
progress on the terracing for
the processing plant.
African mining circles. His involvement with
Asanko Gold (or Keegan Resources, as it was
known till 2012) dates back to October 2012
when the Highland Park Group became a major
strategic investor in Keegan. The key investors
in Highland Park – including Breese – all have
a background with LionOre Mining, which
was sold to Norilsk in 2007 for US$6,3 billion.
LionOre’s assets included the Tati nickel mine
near Francistown in Botswana. Breese was
COO of LionOre while Colin Steyn – currently
Asanko Gold’s Chairman – was President and
CEO. Prior to founding LionOre, both Breese
and Steyn worked in Zimbabwe’s mining
industry.
The team that Breese has deployed to
develop the Asanko Gold Mine has in-depth
African experience and includes Hugo Truter
(among other things, he was GM of Tati Nickel
for two years), Rob Sherwen-Slater (at one stage
Chief Mining Engineer for JCI Projects and also
Projects Director for LionOre Mining) and
experienced metallurgist Ed Munnick (previ-
ously COO of Chambishi Metals in Zambia and
Metallurgical Executive at LionOre Mining’s
Africa division).
To build its new mine, Asanko Gold has
appointed two South African-based companies
– DRA and Knight Piesold, both with plenty
of West African experience. DRA is the EPCM
contractor for Phase 1 while Knight Piesold has
been appointed to design the Tailings Storage
Facility (TSF) and carry out detailed geotechni-
cal engineering works at the site. Asanko Gold’s
management has worked with both compa-
nies in the past, particularly DRA. As Breese
said earlier last year when the contracts were