Australian gold company Gryphon Minerals will complete its definitive feasibility study at its key asset, the Banfora Gold Project, in Burkina Faso, during 2012, Gryphon Minerals MD Steve Parsons told the Investing in African Mining Indaba, in Cape Town.
“We’re expecting to be permitting in the second half of this year and starting development early next year,” he said. Parsons told the Mining Indaba that the resource at Banfora currently stood at two-million ounces of gold and Gryphon Minerals was targeting a production volume of 200 000 oz/y using conventional carbon-in-leach technology.
Metallurgical recoveries at the Banfora gold project are an “excellent” 93%, according to Parsons. The site has so far only been drilled to about 120 m and is open at depth. “This year, we have an aggressive [R30-million] drill programme planned. We currently have eight drill rigs on site.”
The company expects a resource upgrade both in the middle and at the end of 2012.
Parsons said Gryphon Minerals fully owns the 1 200 km2 of land in Burkina Faso, which is becoming a major gold-producing district. “It is at the forefront of gold mines at the moment and has gone basically from zero production in the last few years up to about the fourth- or fifth-largest gold-producing country in Africa.” Besides being in a promining country, other advantages for the Banfora project were that the site had access to water and “cheap” grid hydroelectric power from Côte d’Ivoire.
“So we are obviously on the way to being the first Australian gold mine in Burkina Faso with strong government and local support,” stated Parsons.
Gryphon Minerals has for some time been looking for the next Banfora and has thus expanded its interests in Africa with an exploration footprint that now extends to Mauritania and Côte d’Ivoire, with 4 000 km2 in both of these countries.
The company will be undertaking drilling in Mauritania during 2012, where the company’s “next real big push” would be.
Parsons said a motivator to move into Mauritania is the Tijirit project, adjacent to the Tasiast gold mine. Gryphon acquired the property just over 12 months ago and has been carrying out extensive testing and has already undertaken some diamond drilling.
“From that, we have identified high-priority targets. We now have a drill rig on site [and] started drilling the other day. We have that drill rig locked in all the way through until September.”
Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter
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