Modern Mining October 2018

GOLD

and will deliver 907 koz at a head grade of 1,31 g/t Au. It will have a strip ratio of 0,5 to 1 (waste to ore). Total gold produced over the LOM is 3,97 Moz at a 1,14 g/t head grade and a strip ratio of 1,4 to 1. The All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) is US$599/oz for the Starter Pit and US$769/oz for the LOM. Mining will consist of a conventional hydraulic shovel operation typically using 400-ton class excavators in a face-shovel con- figuration and 150-ton class (Cat 785 or similar) rigid body dump trucks hauling on designed access roads. An auxiliary mining fleet of doz- ers, graders, water carts and utility vehicles will support the mining operation. The appro- priately-sized equipment is of medium scale and is less amenable to selective mining. With 60 m minimum mining width, selective min- ing practices are limited for development of this orebody. Except for the initial plant commissioning, oxide ore will be stockpiled temporarily and batch-fed into the process plant when suitable volumes are available, ensuring that no more than 10 % of the plant available time is occu- pied in processing oxide in any one year. Waste rock will be stockpiled separately on the west- ern side of the pit. The processing flowsheet incorporates conventional primary single stage primary crushing with a gyratory crusher, two-stage SAG/ball milling in closed circuit with

(now Asanko Gold). He is a Ghanaian resident. The PFS was undertaken by an Owner’s Team from Cardinal in collaboration with a team of internationally recognised consultants with Golder Associates as Study Manager and builds on a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) published in February this year. Based on a new resource statement released in March this year, the PFS incorporates a maiden prob- able ore reserve of 4,76 Moz from 129,6 Mt at 1,14 g/t Au at a 0,5 g/t cut off. The PFS examined a number of through- put options, namely 9,5 Mt/a, 7,0 Mt/a and 4,5 Mt/a, and concluded that the best economic scenario was the 9,5 Mt/a option. Mining of the Namdini project has been assumed to be medium-scale using conven- tional open-pit mining equipment. The mining process will include drill and blast as well as conventional load and haul operations. There is expected to be a limited amount of free-dig material with the majority of material assumed to require drilling and blasting. Mining will be carried out using staged cut- backs with four identified stages incorporated within the LOM final pit including an initial stage (Starter Pit) being for early access to the higher-grade ore near the surface. Mining is proposed on 3 to 5 m flitches in the ore, within 10 m benches. Under the 9,5 Mt/a scenario, the Starter Pit will run for the first 2,5 years of production

Above: The project is located in north-eastern Ghana close to the border with Burkina Faso. Above left: A drill site at the Namdini project. Approxi- mately 118 km of drilling have been completed since the first discovery hole (photo: Cardinal).

October 2018  MODERN MINING  31