Modern Mining June 2015

MINING IN AFRICA

Gold resurgent inWest Africa This very recent photo from an aerial drone shows early earthworks underway at Hummingbird’s Yanfolila project in Mali (photo: Hummingbird Resources). The gold mining industry in South Africa might be in the doldrums but in West Africa it is very buoyant – almost booming in fact – with a whole raft of projects either under construction or close to imple- mentation and poised to deliver well over a million ounces of new gold production within the next three to five years. In this article, Modern Mining’s Arthur Tassell reviews some of the more significant gold projects in the region, several of which are being built by South African contractors.

M ost of these projects are lo- cated in Mali, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Burkina Faso, the ‘usual sus- pects’ when it comes to West African gold mining, but an interesting current development is the emergence of Liberia – em- broiled in a civil war little more than a decade ago – as yet another attractive gold mining des- tination in the West African region. Mali – destination of choice Mali has arguably been the West African des- tination of choice for gold explorers in recent years and it now has a well-established gold mining industry that rivals Ghana’s. The coun- try’s next new mine will be Yanfolila , which is being developed by UK-based, AIM-quoted Hummingbird Resources. The company said in April this year that it was embarking on the early site earthworks at Yanfolila and also announced the appointment of Johann du Preez (ex Lycopodium and MDM Ferroman) as project construction manager. Long lead items for the project have been ordered including the

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34  MODERN MINING  June 2015