West-Africa-focused gold miner and regional explorer Semafo’s Boungou gold mine, in Burkina Faso, is more than 87% complete, with the first gold pour scheduled for the third quarter.

The Boungou gold mine, located on a high-grade gold deposit in the Est region in south-eastern Burkina Faso, will be an openpit mine and, based on 2017 year-end mineral reserves and resources, will have a mine life of about eight years.

Ore will be processed by means of a 4 000 t/d carbon-in-pulp plant. During the five-year period from 2019 to 2023, Semafo is targeting an average production of more than 204 000 oz at an all-in sustaining cost of $516/oz, according to the company’s website.

In February, the miner noted that it expects to produce about 75 000 oz at Boungou during 2018, of which 60 000 oz to 70 000 oz would be during commercial production. Once in commercial production, Boungou should process about 0.45-million tonnes of ore at an average grade of 4.87 g/t gold, with an average gold recovery rate of 93%.

In March, Semafo started commissioning activities on dry plant equipment as the first step towards the first gold pour. The power plant is nearly complete and has been partially operational since March. The crushing and reclaim equipment, required for initial production, will undergo testing over the next few weeks.

Some project milestones up to February 28 include the completion of the gold room and plant services being advanced from the fourth quarter to the third quarter. Meanwhile, the assay laboratory is already operational.

Development is currently on budget, with $182-million of the budgeted $231-million capital expenditure used.

The structural steel and mechanical installation is nearing completion, piping installation is 50% complete, the tailings storage facility is more than 80% complete and nearly 65% of the electrical and instrumentation installation is complete.

Prestripping is 69% completed, with 12.5- million of the 18-million tonnes extracted. Ore extraction is expected to start soon.

Semafo has employed 1 818 personnel on the site, with 85% being from Burkina Faso.