Name: Tabakoto mine.
Location: The Tabakoto mine is located about 360 km west of Bamako, in south-western Mali, near the Senegal border.
Holding and Controlling Company: Endeavour mining owns 80% of the mine through its wholly owned Malian subsidiary Ségala Mining Corporation, while the Mali government owns the remaining 20%.
Brief Description: The Tabakoto mine operations currently consist of the Kofi C openpit, and the Senegal and Tabakoto underground operations, with gravity/carbon-in-leach facilities.
Brief History: Western Mali has been the focus of the gold exploration programmes since the 1960s. In the 1980s the United Nations Development programme completed airborne geophysical, geochemistry and geochemical surveys, which identified anomalies at Tabakoto, Ségala and Kofi Nord.
Nevsun Resources completed the first feasibility study on the Tabakoto and Ségala deposits in 2002, and put them into production in 2006. However, operations were suspended in September 2007, owing to start-up problems, and the project was sold to Avion Resources in 2008. Avion restarted operations and poured first gold in March 2009.
Endeavour acquired the mine in 2009 and under the company’s management the mine underwent a complete asset turnaround. The Tabakoto and Ségala openpit mines were converted into underground mines, the Kofi C openpit mine was commissioned and started production in the first quarter of 2015, while the mill’s capacity was expanded from 2 000 t/d to 4 000 t/d in 2013.
Products: Gold
Geology/Mineralisation: The Tabakoto and Kofi properties are located in the east of the Paleoproterozoic Kédougou-Kéniéba inlier, which is bounded by the Hercynian Mauritania orogenic belt on its western margin. Flat lying sandstones of the Paleozoic Taoudeni basin overlay the inlier. A lode gold-style of mineralisation is found at the mine area.
The Birimian rocks of the Kédougou-Kéniéba inlier have been subdivided into the western Mako series (granite-greenstone belt), eastern Dialé-Daléma series (metasedimentary rocks), Faleme series (carbonate-rich sedimentary rocks) and eastern Kofi series (detrital sedimentary rocks).
Mineralisation at Tabakoto, Ségala and Kofi is typically associated with disseminated to massive sulphides, pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite and in rare instances, chalcopyrite and sphalerite. The gold is associated with quartz veining or moderate to intense silification and/ or albitisation. In addition to silification, there is evidence of potassic (sericite and biotite), propylitic (chlorite) and carbonate (dolomite to ankerite).
Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at December 31, 2016, were estimated at 6.3-million tonnes, grading at 3.06 g/t gold.
Resources: Total measured and indicated resources as at December 31, 2016, were estimated at 19-million tonnes, grading at 3.01 g/t gold.
Inferred resources were estimated at 8.2-million tonnes, grading at 3.45 g/t gold.
Mining Method: Underground and openpit.
Major Infrastructure and Equipment: The Tabakoto property includes a 4 000 t/g gold ore processing plant, a tailings storage facility, power, water, mine service facilities and site offices. A mine camp is also maintained for 260 residential staff.
Prospects: An exploration programme comprising about 72 000 m of drilling has been planned for 2017.
The programme will focus on surface exploration to delineate resources within trucking distance at discoveries made in 2016 and on new targets and underground drilling.
Contact: Endeavour Mining VP strategy and investor relations Martino De Ciccio.
Contact Details:
Endeavour Mining
Tel +3317 038 3695
Email mdeciccio@endeavourmining.com
Website https://www.endeavourmining.com