B2Gold mulls options to increase Fekola mill throughput
The increased mineral resource at TSX- and NYSE-listed B2Gold’s Fekola mine, in south-western Mali, indicates potential to increase mill throughput tonnage and yearly gold production with moderate capital expenditure, the company said on Thursday.
Based on about 192 000 m of exploration drilling in 928 drill holes, B2Gold on Thursday reported an updated indicated mineral resource estimate of 92.8-million tonnes at 1.92 g/t gold, for a total of 5.7-million ounces of gold.
B2Gold also reported an inferred mineral resource estimate of 26.5-million tonnes at 1.61 g/t gold, for a total of 1.3-million ounces of gold.
Probable reserves at the start of production at Fekola were 49.2-million tonnes at 2.35 g/t gold containing 3.7-million ounces. These initial reserves are contained within the updated resource, the company said.
In addition, pit shells were run using a gold price of $1 250/oz and demonstrate Fekola's resiliency to lower gold prices.
The indicated mineral resource contains 90.6-million tonnes at 1.94 g/t gold for a total of 5.6-million ounces of gold and inferred mineral resources of 16.2-million tonnes at 1.58 g/t gold containing 844 000 oz of gold.
Additionally, exploration drill results further north of the new resource pit boundary demonstrate that gold mineralisation continues to the north, and remains open, indicating the potential to further expand mineral resources with additional drilling, B2Gold stated.
Meanwhile, the B2Gold operations team is currently designing a new mine plan based on the new Fekola mineral resource estimate, to establish new probable mineral reserves.
Simultaneously, an engineering study is under way to evaluate the Fekola mill expansion potential along with the evaluation of larger mining fleet options.
Current mill production rates have been averaging about 5.5-million tonnes a year, to date, this year.
The expansion study is focused on expanding mill throughput to 7.5-million tonnes a year.
The study is expected to be completed by the end of this year and the results will feed into the overall mine/mill expansion evaluation to optimise the economics of the significantly larger, new Fekola mineral resource.
As part of the expansion study, the Fekola mill ran a five-day campaign of 1.1 g/t gold ore in October to evaluate gold recovery on low-grade material for long-term planning purposes.
For the remainder of this year, exploration drilling will continue to the immediate north and west of Fekola, and at the Anaconda zones about 20 km from Fekola.
In 2019, the company plans to continue its successful drilling to convert Fekola's inferred resources to reserves, further explore through drilling the potential to the north and west of Fekola and continue drilling at and beneath the Anaconda saprolite zone.
B2Gold intends to release more 2018 exploration results from these zones in November, in conjunction with the third quarter financial results.
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