JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Randgold Resources’ Tongon gold mine, in Côte d’Ivoire, remains on track to achieve its yearly production and cost guidance, following a year in which its management made significant progress in dealing with the recovery and throughput challenges that had hampered the operation in its early stages, CEO Mark Bristow has said.
Speaking at the mine’s quarterly update for local media at the weekend, Bristow noted that the commissioning of the mine’s new flotation circuit and the ongoing expansion of the crushing circuit were having the expected impact on production and costs, steadily lifting Tongon towards its designed performance level.
Construction of the upgraded flotation circuit was complete and automation and optimisation were under way.
Concurrently, contractor Sandvik and Randgold were still jointly working on optimising the crushing circuit upgrade to meet Tongon’s planned output.
“Following the recent dry season’s impact on the Ivorian power utility’s power generation capacity, there has been constructive cooperation between the utility and mine to minimise the impact.
“The mine is forecasting production of some 260 000 oz of gold at a total cash cost of $820/oz in 2015,” said Bristow.
At the current gold price, Tongon should be able to repay its capital this year, as scheduled.
In the meantime, continuing exploration had replaced all the reserves consumed by mining last year, effectively extending Tongon’s life by a year.
Bristow said that, with operational pressure easing, management had been able to advance Tongon’s ambitious social initiatives, designed to develop a sustainable agribusiness as the mine’s economic legacy to the community.
The strategy had two components: an industrial agribusiness to replace the mine after its eventual closure and a community agribusiness based on small farming operations.
Work was under way on the construction of a fish farming project capable of delivering almost 10 t of fish a year, while several women’s market garden projects had already produced their first crops.