Modern Mining Marchh 2017

GOLD

most recently GM and Head of Operations at Newmont Golden Ridge, in which role he oversaw commissioning and production at the 9 Mt/a Akyem gold mine in Ghana. Prior to this he was Executive GM at Bisha in Eritrea, where he successfully managed the construction, commissioning and operations at the 1 Mt/a gold plant and the 2,4 Mt/a copper plant. “Including the contractors, we are expect- ing to employ around 400 people on the mine,” notes Monro. “Given that Mali is the third big- gest gold mining country in Africa, there is a substantial skills base available locally and we anticipate that Yanfolila will be run almost entirely by Malians with perhaps just a hand- ful of expatriates – probably no more than ten – being required. This is similar to how Randgold run their mines in Mali.” Based on the present mine plan, Yanfolila’s operations will extend through to around 2024 but Hummingbird believes the mine life will be extended considerably. “There is more than a million ounces of gold outside of our current mine plan but within our permit and there is also potential to develop an underground oper- ation once the open pits are complete,” states Monro. “In addition, we have the Gonka deposit, situated 5 km south of the plant site, which did not form part of the DFS. We’ve completed a scoping study – it was undertaken by DRA – on this resource which indicates that it could support the mining of approximately 166 000 ounces over six years via both open-pit and underground methods. The current plant we’re building would be able to treat the Gonka ore in parallel with the ore from the currently planned mining operations which could add up to an additional 30 000 ounces per year to production. Replacing 3 g/t ore with 4,5 g/t ore from Gonka has lots of benefits.” While Yanfolila is Hummingbird’s imme- diate focus, the company – founded by the

present MD, Dan Betts, in 2005 – has a second project waiting in the wings. This is Dugbe in south-east Liberia, which – with over 4 Moz of gold – ranks as Liberia’s largest gold deposit. A PEA on the project has been completed and a partly completed DFS is currently undergoing optimisation. “Hummingbird’s vision is to be more than just a one-mine company and Dugbe will allow us to achieve this objective and start to enter the ranks of the true mid-tier producers,” says Monro. “It will require a much higher capex than Yanfolila but in return offers a 20-year life at an average annual production of 125 000 ounces. Getting Yanfolila up and running is currently keeping the Hummingbird team very busy but we continue to highly value the Dugbe gold project and want to see it devel- oped in the future.” Report by Arthur Tassell, photos courtesy of Hummingbird

The very latest shot of Yanfolila taken in early

March – comparing it with the photo opposite from late last year, one can see the rapid pace of construction.

March 2017  MODERN MINING  23