Asante Gold, which has been rehabilitating its Bibiani gold operation since acquiring it in 2021, has announced the first gold pour from the Ghana mine.
The achievement of gravity gold concentrate recovered by the Knelson Concentrator comes after an early June start of commissioning and operation at the mine’s process plant. It has been in 24-hour operation from the facility since 1 July and hot commissioning was completed on 7 July.
After acquiring Bibiani last August, Asante said the following month it began work to refurbish and upgrade the process plant, tailings storage facility and mine site infrastructure and outlined a target to pour gold in 3Q22.
Officials said this is the final operating area of the process plant to be commissioned; it is now planning to scale up production as planned, including collection of gold on carbon, leading to delivery of approximately 175,000 ounces of gold over the next 12 months.
“From the outset of our acquisition of the Bibiani Gold Mine, Asante has made a number of commitments to our stakeholders, including the local community, the Government of Ghana and our investors. We are proud that all of the commitments we made in the past 10 months relating to the Bibiani Gold Mine have been met or exceeded, up to this time,” said Asante Gold CEO Dave Anthony.
“We recognize and thank our principal project partners, all of which have been Ghanaian companies, including Harlequin International, Rabotec, KPS, Kozah Construction, iConstruction, Emak, Electrowind, FLSmidth – Ghana, Caesar Furnace, Mining Project Processing and Engineering Limited (MPPE), Top Quality Investments Limited, Rand Sandblasting Company, Tesla Electricals, Multigeomatics, Knight Piesold Ghana Limited, Bosch Rexroth (Ghana) and PW International.”
In related news, Asante is currently focused on closing the acquisition of the Chirano gold mine from Kinross Gold.
Source: Asante Gold