VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian gold miner Asanko Gold on Tuesday poured its first gold at its eponymous mine in Ghana, marking an historic milestone in the company’s transition from explorer to producer.

“I am proud to announce that Asanko gold mine is officially the newest producing gold mine in Ghana, with Phase 1 successfully built within our capital budget and commissioned one month ahead of schedule,” stated president and CEO Peter Breese.

The Vancouver-based company produced about 400 oz of gold after operations of the entire processing facility started one month ahead of schedule.

“As we complete commissioning and ramp-up to steady-state production rates, I am pleased to note the early gains that we have already achieved with respect to throughput rates and mill grind, which have exceeded our expectations. We remain confident of declaring commercial production during Q2 2016,” Breese added.

The two mills have had several days of continuous operations with daily milling rates matching or exceeding designed throughputs of 8 300 t/d, the company advised. Both mills had also attained grinds that were in line with the plant design parameters.

The operations were fed low-grade ores until the density built up in the fully erected and commissioned carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit. Once this was achieved, cyanide was introduced into the CIL and gravity gold circuits and the entire operation from milling to the CIL circuit were now being run at planned feed grades.

Gold inventory in the CIL circuit would continue to build up to steady-state levels over the next month, after which time full gold output rates were expected.

Asanko said that it continued to develop the Nkran pit, with full drill and blast operations continuing at long-term steady-state levels. To date, more than 22-million tonnes of material had been removed from the pit and various ore benches had been exposed.

There were now enough working faces available in the pit to allow for the necessary quantities of ore to be mined at planned grades to feed the mill at designed throughput rates.

Grade control drilling was also being undertaken according to plan, with the next six months of planned ore having been drilled and modelled into the medium-term mine plan. The grade-control-based mine plan for 2016 was expected to be in line with the definitive project plan, which was published in November 2014.

As at December 31, Asanko had about $116-million cash in the bank.