Modern Mining October 2017

MINING News

Mako in Senegal to pour its first gold in early 2018 90 % of staff at the project are Senegalese nationals,” he says.

Toro Gold, a Guernsey-registered private gold exploration and development com- pany, reports excellent progress on the development of its Mako gold mine in eastern Senegal. It says the project is cur- rently on schedule and budget to deliver first gold during Q1 2018. Following the award of a 15-year Mining Concession to Toro’s 90 %-owned Petowal Mining Company SARL (PMC) by the Government of Senegal in July 2016, construction commenced in August 2016 on a planned 18-month develop- ment schedule with forecast capital costs of US$158 million to steady state production. According to Martin Horgan, Toro’s CEO, the working partnership between Toro’s owner’s team and a group of experienced contractors has enabled the company to maintain both schedule and budget.“With over 1 100 people currently working at site, emphasis has remained on the preferential use of local and national staff in addition to the provision of training opportunities – I am delighted to report that approximately

have been retained: LycopodiumMinerals; Eiffage Senegal; SFTP SA;TTI; DLM Senegal; Knight Piésold Consulting; SGS Minerals; Vivo Energy; AMS Senegal (AMSS); Power Solutions Africa; and ATS. While most of these groups have direct experience of construction and opera- tions in Senegal, AMSS is a newly formed entity which ranks as Senegal’s first fully integrated, international contract mining services company. All key earthworks and civils/con- crete for the plant site were completed on schedule in early 2017 which permit- ted the start of installation works before the onset of the wet season in Senegal in June/July. All six CIL tanks, top of tank steel and pipe racks have been erected which allowed piping andmechanical installation works to start in July. The mill concrete foundation was poured early giving access to the mill installation activities. SAG mill compo- nents have been delivered to site and installation of the shell is well advanced. The primary crusher facility is on schedule

“We now look forward to the critical phase of construction completion and the handover to operational staff via the commissioning period – with the opera- tional team substantially recruited at this time, the company is well prepared for this phase.” Based on the 2015 Definitive Feasi­ bility Study and the subsequent 2016 Optimisation Study, the project envis- ages the development of a 1 Moz JORC-compliant reserve over an initial eight-year life. Mining will take place in a single open pit with the ore being treated in an industry standard 1,8 Mt/a CIL pro- cessing facility to extract the gold. In selecting the contractors to com- plete both construction and operational aspects of the project, Toro Gold says it has sought to engage internationally repu- table groups with successful track records in the development and operation of gold projects in Africa. Utilising a competitive tendering approach, the following groups

CIL tanks and tops at Mako in August this year (photo: Toro Gold).

12  MODERN MINING  October 2017