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February 2017
MODERN MINING
7
MINING News
Golden Star Resources, listed on the NYSE
MKT, TSX and the Ghana Stock Exchange,
says it has achieved commercial produc-
tion at its Wassa underground gold mine
(Wassa Underground) in Ghana, effective
January 1, 2017.
The project construction of Wassa
Underground, including the installation
of all ancillary infrastructure, is essentially
complete and operational, in accordance
with the company’s planned schedule and
budget.
Gold production is anticipated to con-
tinue to ramp up during 2017 as Golden
Star’s mining operations begin to access
the B Shoot, which is a higher grade area
of the Wassa Underground ore-
body. The company plans to
begin longitudinal stoping of
the B Shoot in the first quarter of
2017, with the larger, transverse
stopes expected to be accessed
in the third quarter of 2017.
Since Golden Star blasted the
first stope atWassa Underground
in July 2016, the company has
been mining development and
stope ore in the F Shoot.
Total gold production from
Wassa Underground in 2016 was
11 062 ounces, with the fourth
quarter accounting for 7 865
ounces of this total. Total gold
production from theWassa Main
Pit in 2016 was 93 319 ounces
with 21 411 ounces of this being
produced in the fourth quarter.
Sam Coetzer, President and
sold in three separate sales and achieved
prices up to US$41 500 per carat.
Previous development plans for
Mothae have predominantly been focused
on larger-scale mining and processing sce-
narios. In contrast, Lucapa will be adopting
a staged, low capital and low risk approach
to developing the kimberlite mine.
Lucapa and the GOL will develop the
Mothae mine in two phases. Phase 1 is
designed to generate early cash flows
within 12 months of acquisition from a low
up-front capital investment.The production
plan involves processing approximately
2 Mt of weathered surface kimberlite mate-
rial (including previous stockpiledmaterial)
over a minimum period of three years via
conventional open-pit mining. The planned
treatment rate is 720 000 t/a.
The mining costs during this phase
will be minimised because the weathered
surface material at Mothae can be mined
as ‘free dig’ which does not require con-
ventional drilling or blasting. In addition,
the mine plan includes very limited waste
stripping.
Capital expenditure costs to bring
Phase 1 into production are estimated
at approximately US$12 million, which
includes upgrading and improving the pro-
cess plant to a capacity of 100 t/h, installing
XRT technology to more efficiently recover
large Type IIa diamonds and changing the
plant front-end with further modifications
to de-bottleneck the crushing.
During Phase 1 production, Lucapa will
undertake additional studies to determine
the scale and development of the Phase 2
plan, which will involve processing of
material at higher rates from the deeper
unweathered zone on a conventional
open-pit, drill and blast mining method.
Commercial production achieved
at Wassa Underground in Ghana
Chief Executive Officer of Golden Star,
commented: “Achieving commercial pro-
duction at Wassa Underground marks
the successful completion of a 17-month
construction period. It is also another
important milestone in our transforma-
tion into a high grade, non-refractory gold
producer. Golden Star also anticipates that
it will benefit from Wassa Underground’s
lower cost production, as a result of the
higher grade ore being fed into the Wassa
processing plant. I want to thank our
project construction team for their out-
standing efforts as Wassa Underground
was constructed safely, on schedule and
within our capital budget.”
Wassa Underground, seen here, is now supplementing the open-pit
production at Wassa (photo: Golden Star Resources).