Aim-listed Kefi Minerals has announced it will host its annual general meeting virtually on August 13.

The meeting will discuss a name-change of the company to Kefi Gold and Copper, to reinforce the company’s mission in those metals, given the discoveries that the company has made in the last year.

In the year ended December 31, 2019, the company continued to advance its Tulu Kapi gold project, in Ethiopia, and discovered a copper/zinc/silver deposit at Hawiah, in Saudi Arabia.

The company says its assets, relationships and people provide a strong platform to develop profitable mines in both countries, even amid political turmoil, capital market volatility and the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Kefi states that both Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia have prioritised the development of the mining sector and are implementing reforms to further develop and open up their societies and economies.

Additionally, the company says its projects benefit from the current prevailing gold price of about $1 700/oz, compared with a gold price of $1 400/oz that had prevailed for most of 2019.

The spot gold price now sits at more than $600/oz higher than the Tulu Kapi ore reserves assumption of $1 098/oz set in 2015 and $300/oz higher than the company’s revised base assumption of $1 400/oz.

The company has finalised a 2020 Tulu Kapi Plan, which now has more reliable assumptions owing to finalisation of infrastructure design and updated cost inputs. In light of the improved gold price environment, Kefi has adopted a gold price range of between $1 400/oz and $1 800/oz for illustrative modelling purposes.

All-in sustaining costs are now estimated to range at between $856/oz and $884/oz and all-in costs between $1 066/oz and $1 094/oz. An average earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of between $78-million and $129-million is expected to be generated each year.

In the year under review, the company aimed to finalise the Tulu Kapi funding and is currently still working with an Ethiopian private sector investment company to come on board.

Late last year, Kefi selected its preferred project infrastructure finance proposal, being a bank-loan-based proposal received from Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank and Africa Finance Corporation.

The company remains focused on financial close of the project’s funding by October this year, and starting gold production at Tulu Kapi in 2022.

Meanwhile, Kefi is working to publish a maiden mineral resource for the Hawiah project shortly.