The Morila gold mine, in Mali.
PERTH (miningweekly.com) - Newly renamed Firefinch has resumed share trading on the ASX after completing the acquisition of an 80% interest in the Morila gold mine, in Mali, at a final price of A$28.8-million.
Firefinch, previously known as Mali Lithium, in September struck a deal with gold miners AngloGold Ashanti and Barrick Gold to acquire the Morila project at a cost of between A$22-million and A$27-million, transforming the company into a cash generating gold producer.
The mine is forecast to produce some 26 350 oz of gold from November 2020 to the second quarter of 2021, with the mine scheduled for closure in 2021. Firefinch has previously said that there was significant potential for near-term growth in production and mine life.
The project is currently producing at an annualised rate of up to 50 000 oz/y recovered gold from tailings, however, Firefinch plans to increase production by restarting openpit mining at satellite pits and at Morila itself.
The project is currently estimated to host an inferred resource of some 32-million tonnes, at 1.26 g/t gold for 1.3-million ounces of contained gold beneath and around the Morila main pit alone.
AngloGold Ashanti on Wednesday said that the sale of Morila was aligned with the company’s strategic objective of streamlining its portfolio to focus its capital allocation on assets with longer life and lower costs.
Barrick has also said that the sale of the asset was in line with the company’s policy of selling its noncore assets to concentrate on tier one mines, with the capacity to produce at least 500 000 oz of gold annually for more than ten years, in the lowest half of the industry’s cost curve.
Barrick CEO Mark Bristow said the company remained committed to its partnership with Mali, where it owns and operates the tier one Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex.
“The discovery and development of Morila served as the springboard for the Barrick legacy company Randgold Resources’ expansion into Africa. Since it went into production in October 2000 it has produced 6.9-million ounces of gold and paid more than $2.5-billion to its stakeholders in the form of dividends and taxes. Morila transitioned to a stockpile treatment operation in 2009 and began processing tailings in 2013,” he added.
Noting that all Morila employees had been re-employed by Firefinch, Bristow said the transaction would benefit the mine’s Malian stakeholders by giving Firefinch the opportunity to extend its life by accessing satellite resources and adapting the infrastructure.