Cora notes progress on Sanankoro ESIA

11th August 2020 By: Tasneem Bulbulia - Senior Contributing Editor Online

West Africa-focused Cora Gold has reported on the progress made by Digby Wells Environmental on the environmental- and social-impact assessment (ESIA) for its Sanankoro gold project, in the Yanfolila gold belt, in southern Mali.

The start of the ESIA was announced on May 4.

The ESIA continues on time and on budget, with numerous concurrent work streams ongoing.

Terms of reference have been submitted to the regulating authority for environmental permitting to formally start the ESIA process.

Baseline water and air-quality monitoring programmes have also been established, with several rounds of sampling completed.

Representative ore samples have been shipped to a laboratory in Australia for geochemical characterisation test work.

Socioeconomic studies are also under way in the local communities and include focus group meetings and household surveys.

There is also the development of environmental and social design criteria to integrate best practice into engineering and project design.

“I am delighted to report that the Digby Wells team has picked up where they left off with the scoping study. We appointed them a little over three months ago and, in challenging conditions, their team has been actively carrying out, with the support of the Cora field team, a number of parallel monitoring programmes and community surveys.

"The ESIA is a critically important part of developing a mining project so it’s pleasing that we are making good progress so quickly,” comments Cora CEO Bert Monro.

He indicates that the ESIA is expected to be completed in mid-2021, aligning it with the company’s plans to move Sanankoro towards development as quickly as possible.