Officials with Tietto Minerals are eyeing a first gold pour in a matter of days after announcing on 3 January that wet commissioning had commenced at its Abujar gold project in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa.
The company said the 4.5 million t/y CIL processing system at the 3.45-million-ounce operation is fully operational, with wet commissioning returning up 10,000 t/d low-grade pre-striping material.
All critical spares and reagents are on-site at Abujar, and open-cast mining stockpiles continue to build with more than 15,000 t/day of ore being added to the run-of-mine (ROM) pad. Crews were able to complete work to bring the mine to this point in less than 12 months, both on budget and on schedule.
“To build a gold mine the size of Abujar in less than 12 months is a monumental achievement, To do it during COVID with supply chain issues, escalated pricing and skilled people shortage made it, almost, mission impossible,” MD Caigen Wang said.
“Our in-house construction team has demonstrated it can be delivered through careful planning, diligent management and hard work.”
The Abujar DFS forecast is for 260,000 oz. of gold in the mine’s first year of production once commercial production is reached.
Source: Tietto Minerals