Modern Mining February 2018

GOLD

Yanfolila gallops out of the starting gate Mali’s newest gold mine, Yanfolila, which poured its first gold in December 2017, is performing strongly as its ramps up to a production of 132 000 ounces in its first full year of operation. Speaking to Modern Mining at the recent Mining Indaba in Cape Town, Robert Monro, Head of Business Develop- ment at AIM-listed Hummingbird Resources, the developer and owner of the US$88,5 million mine, said that the plant was delivering recoveries of 95 %, which is above design, and was already operating at 90 % capacity.

T he first gold pour was achieved on time and on budget, bringing to a successful conclusion a pro- gramme of exploration and mine development which dates back to mid-2014 when Hummingbird acquired the project for US$20 million from Gold Fields. Given that Hummingbird – which was found- ed in 2005 by Dan Betts, who is the compa- ny’s CEO – was very much a junior explorer at the time of the transaction, the fact that it has brought the project into production in well under four years represents a very creditable achievement. “We promised our shareholders that we would commission the plant and pour gold by the end of 2017 and we’ve met that com- mitment,” notes Monro. “As with any project,

we had our share o f p r o b l e m s during the con- struction period but overall the implementation proceeded very

smoothly. We had a superb in-house team managing the project and we also selected our contractors very carefully, choosing companies with proven African expertise.” The contractors Monro refers to include South Africa’s SENET, which was appointed as EPCM contractor for the process plant, African Mining Services (AMS), which has the mining contract, and IMAGRI, the civils contractor. SENET, of course, has a long and successful track-record in Africa having completed pro- cess plants throughout the continent since being founded in the late 1980s while AMS, a subsidiary of ASX-listed Ausdrill, has exten- sive West African experience. Monro, who has been with Hummingbird since 2009, also mentions that logistics were easier than anticipated. “I think everyone on the Hummingbird team was surprised at how fast materials and equipment arrived on site after being delivered by ship to either Dakar in Senegal or Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. In all, the project required around 350 containers of equipment and, for the most part, these arrived on time. “We did experience one setback, however, when a shipping company mistakenly sent one consignment of equipment to Angola. This was something totally outside Hummingbird’s con- trol. It impacted our progress on site but – since we were already running ahead of schedule – we were still able to complete the project

In the gold room at Yanfolila, Mali’s newest gold producer.

26  MODERN MINING  February 2018