Modern Mining February 2015

MINING News

ics. The main Otjikoto open-pit deposit is 29,4 Mt at a grade of 1,42 g/t gold contain- ing 1,34 million ounces of gold. For 2015, Otjikoto is expected to pro- duce between 140 000 to 150 000 ounces of gold at a cash operating cost of approxi- mately US$500-$525 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of approximately US$700 per ounce. Once the planned mill expan- sion is completed in the third quarter of 2015, increasing the annual throughput at the mill from 2,5 Mt/a of ore to approxi- mately 3 Mt/a, the company expects annual gold production to increase to approximately 200 000 ounces in 2016 and 2017.  Updated higher grade resource at Otjikoto’s Wolfshag zone

Canada’s B2Gold Corp has announced a significantly higher grade updated gold mineral resource estimate for theWolfshag zone located directly adjacent to the east and north-east of its new open-pit Otjikoto mine in Namibia. The updated inferred mineral resource contains 675 000 ounces of gold within 2,58 Mt grading 8,14 g/t gold utilising a 3 g/t cut-off. This inferred resource is below a pit shell containing an additional 1,03 Mt at 2,81 g/t gold (93 000 ounces gold) in the indicated category. The previously released initial inferred resource estimate for the Wolfshag zone was 6,8 Mt at 3,2 g/t gold containing 703 000 ounces of gold. Mineral resources are reported within a pit shell based on a 0,5 g/t cut-off grade. Mineral resources located below and down plunge of the shell are reported at a 3,0 g/t gold cut-off grade. The reason that the down plunge resource is still in the inferred category is because the 2014 drill spacing was designed to evaluate the Wolfshag zone from an open-pit extraction perspec- tive using a drill spacing of 25 m by 100 m. As the majority of the Wolfshag zone is now envisioned to be mined from under- ground, additional drilling will be required to infill the resource to the indicated cat- egory (25 m by 25 m spacing). Engineering studies are under way to determine which portion of Wolfshag could be mined by open pit and which portion by under- ground mining. B2Gold currently plans to commence open-pit mining at Wolfshag in 2016. The conceptual plan would be to blend higher grade material from Wolfshag with ore from the Otjikoto pit resulting in an increase in annual gold production at Otjikoto and improved project econom-

New Liberty gold mine heads for commissioning Seen below is a recent view of the New Liberty gold project site in Liberia, which Aureus Mining, listed on the TSX and AIM, describes as ”the most advanced gold mine under construction in West Africa”. New Liberty, which involves a capex of US$152 million, has an eight-year life on current reserves and should achieve an annual pro- duction of approximately 120 000 ounces of gold over the first six years of its life at an all-in sustaining cash cost of US$850/oz. It will be an open-pit operation with the processing route consisting of conventional

gravity and CIL processing. Plant construc- tion was around 70 % complete by late last year and commissioning is due to start in the second quarter of this year. The EPCM contractor is South Africa’s DRA Mineral Projects, which was also responsible for the studies on the project, including the PEA and the DFS. Aureus will undertake the mining itself with MonuRent contracted to provide and maintain the mining fleet. Already several 100-tonne dump trucks and a 120-tonne excavator have arrived on site. 

February 2015  MODERN MINING  5