VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Since declaring commercial production on April 1, Canadian gold producer Asanko Gold has maintained steady-state production at its eponymous mine, in Ghana.
The strong performance prompted the company on Friday to lift production guidance for the second half of the year to between 100 000 oz and 105 000 oz, up from between 90 000 oz and 100 000 oz previously forecast.
TSX-listed Asanko said the operation’s mills are operating at 10% above design capacity at 3.3-million tonnes a year, while gold recovery exceeded plan.
The company is busy implementing crushing improvements through to the first quarter of 2017, to increase mill throughput to around 3.6-million tonnes a year.
Asanko stated that it was working on a new optimised life-of-mine plan in conjunction with the Phase 2 definitive feasibility study, planning for higher throughput rates and gold output for 2017 and 2018, ahead of Phase 2 operations.