TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Nasdaq- and LSE-listed Randgold Resources plans to complete a scoping study in the next few weeks on its high-grade Gounkoto discovery, in Mali, CEO Mark Bristow said on Thursday.

The company has struck it lucky on two counts – not only is Gounkoto an exceptionally high-grade, wide orebody, but it is located within the boundaries of Randgold's fully-permitted Loulo property.

The results of the scoping study, which will include an initial resource estimate, will be made public when the company reports its third-quarter results, Bristow said in an interview in Toronto.

From there, a prefeasibility study will likely be wrapped up by March, followed by a full bankable study before year-end 2010.

Already, drilling has confirmed a large mineralised system with wide and high-grade zones, over a one-kilometre strike, which remains open in all directions.

The weighted average for the true width and grade of the main mineralised zone over a strike length of 1 072 m is 18,26 m at 9,93g/t.

“It's a spectacular deposit, that offers every potential to be a very low-cost producer,” Bristow said.

In fact, speaking at the Denver Gold Forum earlier this week, he quipped that Randgold's company-making high-grade mine, the Morila asset, in Mali, was known in its heyday as 'Morila the Gorilla'. Bristow speculates that, “at Gounkoto, we may well have found the next gorilla”.

The company plans to have both Gounkoto and its other key gold discovery, Massawa, in Senegal, at the bankable stage before the end of next year, which will coincide with the start-up of the new Tongon mine, in the Côte d’Ivoire, as well as the end of the major capital programme at the Loulo mine.

That will mean the minebuilding teams will be coming off Tongon and Loulo, and straight into Gounkoto and Massawa.

Randgold will also start development on a second underground operation at Loulo early in 2010, with first production scheduled towards the end of the year.

With the underground assets ramping up and Tongon coming on line next year, the company expects to boost output to more than 600 000 attributable ounces of gold by 2011.

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