West Africa-focused gold exploration and development company Cora Gold has reported that significant progress has been made with the front-end engineering design (FEED) process and early works programme at its flagship Sanankoro gold project, in southern Mali, with workflows, 3D plant modelling and all fieldwork having been concluded.

The company says work on the FEED process, announced in May and led by engineering consultancy DRA Global subsidiary SENET, remains on target to be completed within the fourth quarter of this year.

In detailing the extent of the progress made at Sanankoro, Cora CEO Bert Monro highlights that updated technical proposals and design information have been submitted to SENET, enabling progress with 3D plant modelling and selective detailed drawing development across all of the major process areas, including the run-of-mine area, crushing and transfer to milling, the scrubber and ball mill circuit, and the carbon-in-leach (CIL) and elution circuits, including the carbon regeneration circuit.

“Sanankoro is rapidly moving towards construction readiness, with FEED going very well and all fieldwork now completed. 3D plant modelling has now been completed, and key equipment suppliers are actively engaged on comminution, CIL and elution circuit packages,” he says.

Alongside the FEED process, Cora is advancing a number of pre-construction work streams to ensure Sanankoro is ready to move into full construction as quickly as possible once a mining permit is received.

The company also highlights that the land compensation process for the tailings storage facility area, covering 174 ha, at Sanankoro has now been completed.

Moreover, it adds that the exploration camp upgrade, including the installation of a new security perimeter fence and gates, the refurbishment of accommodation blocks, new ceilings, doors and painting throughout, upgraded ablution facilities and the installation of additional water storage capacity, has been completed.

“This work is progressing in tandem with our resource expansion work, which has yielded highly positive initial results.

“The programme is targeting extensions to existing deposits and near-mine greenfield targets, with the aim of expanding the Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (Jorc-) compliant mineral resource to over one-million ounces.

“This is setting the stage for a low-cost, high-margin, long-life mine at Sanankoro and we continue to engage activity with the government of Mali and look forward to sharing further progress on permitting in the near future,” Monro says.

Cora continues to engage actively with the government of Mali on the exploration permit application and the permit reshaping exercise to consolidate all mining infrastructure under a single mining permit area.

So far, Mali’s Council of Ministers has approved the first interim renewal of the Sanakoro II exploration permit, representing a positive step in the overall process.