Wet commissioning has started at Endeavour Mining's Ity carbon-in-leach (CIL) project, in Côte d'Ivoire.
The company on Wednesday reported that construction was progressing within budget.
The project is 97% complete and the first gold pour is expected to occur early in the second quarter of this year – two months ahead of schedule.
"We are proud of the key milestones achieved in recent months as the project construction has been significantly derisked. We are excited to have commenced the commissioning phase several months ahead of the initial schedule.
"The start of production at Ity will be a transformative moment for Endeavour. It will become, alongside Houndé, our second flagship mine, and marks the end of several years of large capital-intensive projects, which will allow us to focus on cash flow generation and generating returns on our capital employed," Endeavour president and CEO Sébastien de Montessus commented.