West Africa-focused gold company Cora Gold on July 11 announced the appointment of key management personnel and the start of the construction tender process as it focuses on transitioning its flagship Sanankoro project in south Mali into a producing mine.

As part of its strategy to advance the construction of an openpit oxide mine at Sanankoro, and following the recent signing of a $70-million debt mandate letter, the company has appointed key management personnel to broaden its in-house capabilities.

Cora has appointed Lourens Steenekamp, who is an experienced mining professional with a career spanning over three decades, as project manager.

“Having begun his mining career with gold miner Gold Fields, he held engineering roles in Ghana and Tanzania where he progressed to construction projects. More recently, he has worked as project manager on various projects.

“This includes a greenfield oxide operation at the Syama and Tabakaroni mines in Mali for Resolute Mining, and in a project manager role at Sissingue and Fimbiasso mines for Perseus Mining in the Côte d'Ivoire,” Cora states.

Further, Cora has appointed Frikkie Fourie, who began his career on the platinum mines in Rustenburg in South Africa, as mining consultant.

Fourie worked at the Bathopele underground mechanised mine before joining a mining consultancy as a mining engineer, where he advised on over 30 projects.

“He then moved back into operations at gold miner Galiano Gold in Ghana in 2016, where he started as senior mining engineer. He was later promoted to vice president of mining, responsible for providing direct technical support to the mine, the planning process, compliance to plan, optimisation, design and strategic planning.”

Lastly, Cora also appointed Murray Paterson, who is an accomplished technical geologist with 30 years of experience, as head of geology.

“He has worked in all aspects of geological-related disciplines, from exploration, mineral resources, mine geology and feasibility studies, and across multiple metal commodities and locations. Paterson has held previous roles working in West Africa, primarily at the start of operations.

“This includes working at Syama gold mine in Mali under exploration company Randgold & Exploration, and more recently at gold company Hummingbird Resources’ Yanfolila gold mine in Mali.

"I am delighted to welcome Steenekamp, Fourie and Paterson to the Cora team as we move Sanankoro towards the construction phase. We are fortunate to have found people of their calibre and specific skills set with experience of moving West African gold projects through the planning phase to construction and production,” states Cora CEO Bert Monro.

"Additionally, we have been running a series of tenders for various aspects of the construction process and look forward to providing further updates on these in due course."

CONSTRUCTION TENDER
The company has also commenced tendering processes for the front-end engineering design and construction of the Sanankoro mine, as well as the hybrid power solution, mine camp construction and other areas.

The tendering process for the contract mining will formally commence once the Mali government's permit moratorium has been lifted, Cora points out.

The Mali government's moratorium on reviewing and issuing permits announced on November 28 last year remains in place. At this time, the government stated it would make a further announcement when lifted.

Cora has prepared its application for the Sanankoro mining permit ready for submission once the moratorium is lifted.

Owing to the nature of the project layout, Cora has been working with the relevant Malian authorities to re-draw various permit boundaries in order to create a 100 km² area for the mining permit.

This re-drawing process will be formally completed once the moratorium is lifted. The total area of the five contiguous permits that together make up the Sanankoro project area will remain the same following the re-drawing exercise.

In a move that the company believes is a positive step towards ending the moratorium, Amadou Keita has been appointed as the new Mali Minister of Mines, succeeding Lamine Traore who resigned on May 31.