Modern Mining November 2017

MINING News

for our next big discovery in the green- stone belt of the north-eastern DRC. In line with our local supply strategy, Kibali spent approximatelyUS$40 million with Congolese contractors in the past three months alone. We are developing sub- stantial agribusiness and other community projects. And perhaps most important, we invest in the training and empowering of Congolese nationals, who already make up most of the Kibali management team, thus making a contribution of incalculable value to the expansion of the country’s skills base. “The DRC has all the materials for build- ing a sustainable mining industry but that will require a fully committed partnership between the government on the one hand and the mining companies on the other,” he continued. “Despite recent indications to the contrary, we remain confident that such a partnership is within reach, and that the government will see the criti- cal importance of maintaining a stable, investor-friendly fiscal and regulatory envi- ronment for the country’s mining sector.” 

Orca Gold expands water resource at Block 14 Orca Gold Inc, listed on the TSX-V, has reported the successful expansion of the Area 5 aquifer at its Block 14 gold project in Sudan.

on the throughput, enabling Orca to approve the design of a processing facility at GSS of 6,0 Mt/a. The completion of the Feasibility Study incorporating this design scope is expected in early Q2 2018. Drilling is ongoing at GSS to continue converting inferred to indicated resources and to extend the overall resource below the pit shells that formed the basis of the Revised PEA. Results from the first eight holes of a 25 000-m drill programme were recently released showing a strong poten- tial for increased resources both within and outside the existing pit shells, which supports the decision to design a 6,0 Mt/a process plant at GSS. “With the expansion at Area 5, GSS can now be developed to its full design potential. The decision by our Board to proceed with a 6,0 Mt/a operation is a game changer for the project, almost dou- bling the production throughput from the Revised PEA,” Richard Clark, Orca’s Chief Executive Officer, commented. 

The Area 5 aquifer, located 85 km from the main Galat Sufar South deposit (GSS), was initially discovered in May 2017 through a specialised airborne geophysical survey, which identified an aquifer target size of 562 km 2 . A water resource area covering 100 km 2 was proven with twelve boreholes, which sup- ported the 3,4 Mt/a throughput scenario outlined in Orca’s Revised Preliminary Economic Assessment, whose results were announced earlier this year. Recognising the potential and quality of this fresh water aquifer, Orca has recently completed a second programme of six boreholes, expanding the resource area to 135 km 2 and increasing the estimated volume capacity of the aquifer to 100 mil- lion m 3 . This important development has removed water availability as a constraint

November 2017  MODERN MINING  9