PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Perseus Mining has been awarded an exploitation permit for its Yaouré gold mine, in Côte d’Ivoire.
The exploitation permit is the final permit required to start development of the Yaouré gold mine, and followed the inking of a $150-million debt finance facility to develop the project.
“The granting of the exploitation permit to enable development of the Yaouré gold mine is a major milestone for Perseus that firmly places us on the path to achieving our stated goal of producing more than 50 000 oz of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of less than $850/oz from multiple mines in several jurisdictions of West Africa,” said Perseus MD and CEO Jeff Quartermaine.
“When developed, Yaouré is expected to be a large scale, low cost mining operation capable of generating substantial benefits for all of Perseus’ stakeholders, including not only our shareholders who have been keenly awaiting this milestone, but also our host government and local communities, employees and providers of a range of goods and services.”
In addition to the $150-million corporate debt facility now secured, the $265-million Yaouré gold project would be funded by over $80-million of cash and bullion currently on hand, as well as additional contributions from future operational cash flows and proceeds from the exercise of warrants that expire later this month.
The 2017 definitive feasibility study estimated that Yaouré would produce 215 000 oz/y over its first five years of operations, with life-of-mine average all-in site costs estimated at $759/oz.
Perseus on Friday said that with all the major prerequisites for the development of the Yaouré mine now in place, the company’s board would convene in the near future to resolve to start full scale project development.