Modern Mining April 2015

GOLD

the brink of construction Hummingbird in a deal worth US$20 mil- lion,” Betts says. “They’re now the biggest shareholder in Hummingbird, with a stake of approximately 25 %. They could have taken cash but they’ve chosen to retain a significant interest in the project.” IRR of 35,1 %. The payback period (after tax) is put at three years.

Yanfolila has a total gold inventory of 1,8 million ounces, contained in an indicated resource of 8,2 Mt at a grade of 3,3 g/t and an inferred resource of 11,9 Mt at 2,5 g/t. The cur- rent mine plan, however, includes only 6,3 Mt of ore and is based on progressively mining five deposits (some of which consist of several pits): Komana East, Komana West, Guirin West, Sanioumale East and Sanioumale West. The plant has been designed to process 1 Mt/a of a 50:50 blend of oxide and fresh ore giving a likely higher capacity when process- ing softer oxide ore and offering the potential to extend the LOM through processing fresh ore. Hummingbird will contract a mining service provider to apply industry standard open-pit mining methods according to its mine production schedule. A competitive tender is underway for awarding this contract. Mining methods will include excavating the soft oxidised ore near the surface, and drilling and blasting harder transitional and some fresh rock – 67 % of ore processed dur- ing the LOM is oxide ore. Drilling and blasting

Hummingbird is planning a smaller devel- opment than Gold Fields envisaged. “They were proposing a 3 Mt/a operation but we’ve scaled it down as we’re targeting the low strip ratio oxide resources,” Betts explains. “Our strategy is to get into production fast with a low cost, low technical risk project which can – if necessary – be expanded at a later stage. We’ve optimised all the previous work undertaken on the project and our Optimisation Study, which we’ve recently released, indicates very robust economics for the planned development.” The optimised project targets 100 000 ounces of gold production in the first full year after ramp up and 79 000 ounces a year (on average) for the balance of the mine life. C1 cash operat- ing costs are estimated at US$641/oz and all-in sustaining costs at US$733/oz. Assuming a gold price of US$1 250/oz, the project will deliver a post-tax NPV (8 %) of US$72,4 million and an

The Hummingbird camp at the Dugbe project in Liberia.

April 2015  MODERN MINING  27