Iamgold options exploration properties surrounding Rosebel, in Suriname
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian gold miner Iamgold on Friday announced that it had finalised a five-year option agreement with Sarafina under which its subsidiary, Rosebel Gold Mine (RGM), could earn a 100% interest in Sarafina's 10 000 ha mining concession, located 25 km from the Rosebel gold mine, in Suriname.
Toronto-based Iamgold said that it could exercise its right to buy the property at any time for $1-million in cash.
In order to maintain this purchase option, RGM would be required to make scheduled option payments totalling $575 000 over five years.
The agreement could be cancelled at any time; however, should the project proceed to production, Sarafina would be paid a net smelter return royalty of 1.6% for any gold produced from this property.
"Rosebel has been a great mine for Iamgold. In its first ten years, Rosebel produced more gold than defined in its original mineral reserve. Its future reserves are becoming more challenging and expensive to process due to an increasing proportion of hard rock.
“The Sarafina property has the potential to yield new discoveries of higher grade, softer rock that could be mined with a lower stripping ratio than our current operations. The new agreement opens the opportunity to reinvent Rosebel, lengthen its reserve life, lower its unit operating costs and improve its contribution to the government of Suriname, the local community and our investors,” president and CEO Steve Letwin said.
The property lies within the unincorporated joint venture (UJV) area that was negotiated with Suriname in 2013, with the UJV owned 70% by RGM and 30% by the government.
In the UJV, RGM is eligible to benefit from the low power rate of $0.11/kWh for any material processed originating from the Sarafina property.
Iamgold said that it would prioritise exploration of the property, aiming to discover more softer ore to feed the Rosebel mill in the coming years.
The Sarafina property lies within a north-west trending belt of sheared mafic volcanics immediately along strike of the previously discovered Saramacca gold deposit.
The project has been the site of previous exploration and ongoing small-scale mining and was believed to hold undiscovered gold deposits.
The company said it intended to complete a compilation of all historic exploration data to identify priority targets for follow-up and will have its exploration team active on the site immediately.
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