JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-quoted gold and copper miner Kefi Minerals, which is currently transitioning from an exploration-focused company to a development and production group, following its 75% acquisition of the Tulu Kapi gold project, in Ethiopia, said on Tuesday that it continued to advance the project after having initiated site planning in December.

Following the acquisition of the project by subsidiary Kefi Minerals Ethiopia (KME) on December 29, the company immediately started on-site trenching to advance geological structural interpretation and began work on refining the existing definitive feasibility study (DFS) to reactivate the project’s mining licence application (MLA).

“The licence application process had been suspended by former management and the authorities would like to see the application reactivated as soon as possible,” the company said in an operational update for the quarter ended March 31.

The tenement’s Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (Jorc-) compliant mineral resource estimate was updated in March, which increased the indicated category resource by 65% to 1.88-million ounces of gold, for a total resource of 2.05-million ounces.

Meanwhile, a two-month drilling programme was currently under way and KME had formally engaged independent consultants for the first stage of modifying the DFS to suit the anticipated 1.2-million-ton-a-year production rate at higher grades than historically planned.    

“We have set a number of milestones for the year, including targeting the reactivation of Tulu Kapi's MLA in 2014 and the start of construction in 2015,” commented Kefi Minerals MD Jeff Rayner.

Meanwhile, drilling continued at the group’s Jibal Qutman project, in Saudi Arabia, throughout the quarter and mineralisation remained open in three of the five adjacent openpits included in the mineral resource.

In February, the company updated the Jorc-compliant mineral resource to 495 000 oz, while a preliminary feasibility study was completed in March.

The company was currently reviewing the project’s draft MLA before submittal to the authorities.    

Meanwhile, in the first three months of the year, company directors approved an overall business plan targeting earliest development of profitable production from Tulu Kapi and Jibal Qutman, combined with an ambitious exploration programme focused within the Arabian Nubian Shield, in Saudi Arabia.     

In addition, development finance scenarios were outlined to potential project financiers over the quarter in a process that would intensify in the third quarter of the year.