A big technological step for African mining is being taken at the Loulo mine, in Mali, run by Randgold Resources, the London-listed gold mining company which last week reported boosted cash and improved profit in the three months to March 31, on the back of lower costs.

Randgold, which seems to be on the point of discovering a sixth big African mine in its twentieth anniversary year, lifted cash on hand by 71% on strong cash flow from operating activities and reduced capital expenditure (capex), particularly as its new Kibali mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, chipped in with maiden loan repayments.

“We’re remote-mining underground, which is a big technological step for African mining,” Randgold CEO Dr Mark Bristow told Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly telephonically from London.

The delivery of a fully owner-operated Loulo is a current priority of the company, which has declared a dividend for the year ended December 31 of $0.60 a share, up 20% on the previous year’s $0.50.

Randgold structures its mines to make a 20% margin on a gold price of $1 000/oz and is one of the few gold companies that consistently increases reserve ounces and has never impaired any of its assets.

Its first-quarter profit from mining rose 5% to $143.9-million despite slightly reduced gold production of 279 531 oz, mainly as a result of planned lower grades.

Profit for the quarter of $51.3-million, compared with $54.4-million in the previous quarter, was impacted on by increased exploration expenditure, corporate costs and adverse exchange rate movements.

At Loulo, all systems are go for owner-miner status at the Yalea and Gara underground operations by November 1, which will clip 15% off costs.

Working closely with current contractor African Underground Mining Services and equipment supplier Sandvik Mining, Randgold, which decided years ago that its long-term future lay in underground mining, is now a step away from remotely mining underground from the surface.

“We’ve still got the operator sitting in an air-conditioned cubicle underground but we’re at the point of starting to test moving him to surface,” Bristow disclosed to Mining Weekly .

The entire underground management team at Loulo is Malian and the head of the team, Mohamed Cisse, started with Randgold on a company bursary to study at South Africa’s University of Pretoria, in South Africa, where he obtained his mining degree in English despite being Bambara- and French-speaking at the outset.

Under consideration at Loulo is the feasibility of introducing self-guided haulage trucks and semiautomated production mucking to boost utilisation and cut maintenance time.

“Once you go remote-mining, you predetermine the tramming and put in infrared beams to nullify equipment damage,” Bristow elaborated.

On what could well be the discovery of its sixth African mine, the company’s diligent exploration has discovered a new target west of Randgold’s Tongon mine, in Côte d’Ivoire, which at this stage appears to stack up with previous successful discoveries.

Continuous assaying work produced 30 m at 4.6 g across one line of the structure, which hosts the Syama trend.

“We’re very excited about it. We’ve mobilised the rigs and we’ll have good information on it by next quarter, when we should have completed the initial confirmation drilling,” Bristow said.

Total first-quarter cash cost an ounce fell to $708/oz and net operational cash rose from $69.3-million to $101.7-million.

Together with decreasing capex after the completion of Kibali’s first phase of construction, cash on hand rose to $141.2-million at a time of financial stress elsewhere in gold mining, which could present acquisition opportunities for the normally acquisition-averse company that has thrived on self-discovery and development.