Modern Mining January 2018

GOLD

Fresh from its highly successful commissioning of the Houndé gold mine in Burkina Faso, TSX-listed Endeavour Mining is already well into the construction phase of its US$412 million Ity CIL project in Côte d’Ivoire. The project will breathe new life into the country’s oldest active gold mine, transforming it from a 950 kt/a heap leach operation that was nearing the end of its life into a 4 Mt/a CIL operation with at least a 14-year mine life ahead. The ‘new’ Ity will rank as a flagship asset for Endeavour. A recent view of the Ity CIL site with earthworks underway. Endeavour’s Ity CIL project will create a flagship asset

C urrently Ity is a relatively modest gold producer, with annual pro- duction running at approximately 75 000 to 80 000 ounces a year. Once the CIL project is commis- sioned in mid-2019, this will increase rough- ly threefold, with production expected to be 235 000 ounces a year over the first five years of operation at an excellent All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) of under US$500/oz. Houndé will have a similar level of production over its first four years of operation and the two mines will become the twin flagships of the Endeavour Mining group, a title held until now by Ag-

baou, also located in Côte d’Ivoire, which is a 175 000 to 180 000 ounces-a-year producer. The gold mineralisation at Ity, located 480 km north-west of Côte d’Ivoire’s economic capital, Dakar, was discovered in the 1950s but it was not until the early 1990s that a com- mercial mine was established at the site, the developers and owners of the operation being France’s BRGM and the Côte d’Ivoire govern- ment. Since the first gold was poured in 1991, the mine has been in near-continuous operation and has produced more than 1,2 Moz. Ity became part of the Endeavour Mining group in 2015, when Endeavour announced

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30  MODERN MINING  January 2018