Modern Mining May 2017

CRUSHING, SCREENING AND MILLING

Yanfolila gears up for production

T he ball mill for Hummingbird Resourc- es’ Yanfolila gold project in Mali was recently unloaded at a port in West Africa. The mill was constructed predomi- nantly in Italy, France and Holland with the work been overseen by Outotec. The mill rep- resents a significant part of the process plant

successful construction of the tower crane. Construction is on-going and is expected to be completed shortly. All drawing and design work has been completed for the crushing cir- cuit and the fabrication is now underway. The secondary crusher and vibrating grizzly are already on site and various parts will be deliv- ered through to August this year. Yanfolila will have an average annual gold production over a Life of Mine (LOM) of eight years of 107 000 ounces although the first full year of operation will see 132 000 ounces being produced. In all, some 8,7 Mt of ore (at an aver- age grade of 2,95 g/t and a LOM strip ratio of 11,9 to 1) will be mined over the mine life to produce a total of 770 000 ounces. The EPCM contractor for the plant and asso- ciated infrastructure is South African project house SENET while IMAGRI-SARL – a Malian contractor – is responsible for the civil works and SMPP work. African Mining Services (AMS), a subsidiary of ASX-listed Ausdrill, has been selected as the mining contractor. 

The Yanfolila ball mill was recently unloaded at a West African port (photo: Hum- mingbird).

and was completed on budget. It is due to arrive on site on schedule this month (May). Hummingbird, whose shares are quoted on AIM, reports that construction of the 1,2 Mt/a Yanfolila mine is progressing on time and on budget ahead of initial mining targeted in Q3 2017 and the first gold pour by year end. Construction of the CIL tanks commenced in Q1 2017 following the

44  MODERN MINING  May 2017