Modern Mining May 2019

GOLD

Sanankoro shaping up to be a standalone mine AIM-listed Cora Gold, which has a portfolio of exploration assets in West Africa, believes that its flagship Sanankoro project in southern Mali has the potential to become a standalone mine. The company, which is focusing on Sanankoro’s oxide potential, has a very active work programme underway at the project and is targeting the release of a maiden resource by the end of 2019. Modern Mining’s Arthur Tassell recently spoke to Cora’s CEO, Dr Jonathan (Jon) Forster, who is a veteran African explorationist, to learn more about the company’s strategy and why it is so excited about Sanankoro.

C ora Gold was established by For- ster and his long-time colleague, Craig Banfield, in 2012 and was enlarged in 2016 when it became the vehicle for an amalgamation of the gold exploration assets in Mali and Sen- egal of its former parent, Kola Gold, and those of Hummingbird Resources, the developer and owner of the Yanfolila gold mine. Cora listed on AIM in October 2017, an exercise which saw it raise £3,45 million in funding. Hum- mingbird is its single biggest shareholder with a stake of 18,4 %. Forster’s management colleague is Banfield (who is CFO) whilst the Board of Directors is led by its Chairman Geoff McNamara, who has 25 years of resource sector experience as a geologist, project manager, corporate financier and fund manager. Interestingly, one of the non- executive directors is Paul Quirk, a co-founder of Lionhead Capital Partners, an investment firm, who has plenty of experience in the

African resources sector. His father is Patrick Quirk, well-known in Southern African mining circles. Although UK-born and educated (he has a PhD in Structural Geology from the University of London), Forster has devoted virtually his whole career to exploration in Africa, with his first permanent position – back in the early 1980s – being with Iscor, which saw him working on the Tshipise project located in the Soutpansberg coalfield. Since the 1990s he has mainly focused on the junior gold exploration sector in both East and West Africa, initially with SAMAX Gold with projects in West Africa and Tanzania. He was later part of the team that founded AXMIN in 1999 and, in 2008, he and Banfield established Bambuk Minerals Ltd, which was taken over in 2012 by its principal shareholder, Toro Gold. Forster – in conjunction with various col- leagues over the years – has an impressive list of

Cora CEO Jon Forster discussing exploration plans with Exploration Manager Siaka Koumare and Project Geologist Ibrahim Traore at Sanankoro.

22  MODERN MINING  May 2019