Amara Mining has increased M&I gold resources at its Yaoure project, in Côte d’Ivoire, by 17% (739 koz) to 5.2 Moz at a 19% higher grade of 1.54 g/t gold (using a cut-off of 0.5 g/t). Furthermore the company has increased the confidence in resources at the project by increasing the percentage of M&I resources in the total resource to 71%. Inferred resources add 2.2 Moz of gold. The upgrade comes after completion of a near 12,000 m drilling programme.
The in-pit M&I resources (using a US$975/oz shell) are now 89.0 Mt at a grade of 1.59 g/t of gold for 4.5 Moz of gold contained.
Yaoure has a reserve of 70.4 Mt at a grade of 1.18 g/t for 2.7 Moz of gold contained, which the company used as the basis of a pre-feasibility study, which it completed in Q2 2015.
The pre-feasibility study considered an open pit feeding a 6.5 Mt/y plant at 1.18 g/t gold and a recovery of 90% to produce an average of 218 koz/y of gold for 11 years at a cash cost of US$739/oz and AISC of US$782/oz. The total pre-production capital cost was US$447 million.
With the resource update, Amara plans to optimise the PFS through looking at the potential to lower the upfront capital cost through using a smaller processing plant and mining fleet as well as a simplified mine plan. The company expects the higher grade to translate through to lower unit costs.
Amara expects to complete the optimised PFS in Q1 2016.
Amara significantly increases ounces and grade in resources at Yaoure: AMA