Modern Mining September 2020

REGIONAL FOCUS: WEST AFRICA

in West Africa. These are Barrick, AngloGold-Ashanti, Newmont and Kinross. Together with mid-tier and junior miners, these companies have a presence in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea.” SRK Consulting Ghana country manager John Kwofie says that, with the exception of Ghana, most countries in the region were until recently not well- explored for gold deposits.

and favourable tax regimes as factors making West Africa an attractive destination for gold, and for min- ing investment in general. “There have also been more recent opportuni- ties arising from underground expansions of initially opencast operations,” he says. Speaking from a geology point of view, the com- pany’s principal resource geologist Ivan Doku also refers to the fact that much of the mineralisation in the region is shallow, providing access to alluvial gold through free-dig methods. “Most of the mines are therefore opencast, which requires less capital to develop than deeper ore- bodies. For investors, this means a quicker payback period, so funding is easier to raise – a key factor in encouraging especially junior players in the market. “In this Archean greenstone belt, the fissures controlling the mineralisation tend to be open-ended right from shallower depth, making exploration and exploitation easier. With an efficient exploration pro- gramme and planning process, developers could be ready to mine within just a couple of years, rather than the decade or more it might take to develop deep underground mines.” He agrees that, politically, West Africa has been a “generally stable” environment, notwithstanding the current upheaval in Mali. Since the 1990s, transitions between govern- ments have mainly been smooth, giving investors the confidence to consider long-term investments. Mining regulations are usually unambiguous and do not change often but, when they do, stakeholders are given enough time to plan and adapt. “It is therefore not surprising that four of the world’s largest gold miners have significant footprints

Above: Perseus Mining’s Yaouré Gold Mine, located in Côte d’Ivoire.

Centre: In 2011, West Africa became the hub of African gold mining when the region’s total production of gold overtook that of South Africa.

30  MODERN MINING  September 2020