Integrating the Adjacent Massawa Gold Project
In March 2020, Teranga completed the acquisition of the Massawa gold project – one of the highest-grade undeveloped open pit gold projects in Africa, located within 30 kilometres of Sabodala’s mill. Results from a NI 43-101 compliant preliminary feasibility study incorporating a base case combined mine plan demonstrate that combining the two assets creates a top-tier mine with a long-life reserve base, low-costs, and strong cash flows. A preliminary feasibility study is expected to be filed on or before August 31, 2020.
Technical work, trade-off studies, and exploration drilling will continue to further de-risk and improve project economics in support of a definitive feasibility study and mineral resource and reserves update anticipated in 2021. Mining operations have commenced and the processing of Massawa free-milling high-grade ore through Sabodala’s existing plant is expected in Q4 2020.
Mining and Processing
Sabodala operates a multiple open pit central mill operation carried out by owner-operated conventional truck and shovel. The existing mine operating fleet currently used at Sabodala will also be used for the combined Sabodala-Massawa deposits, applying an integrated mine sequencing plan to optimize the combined reserves base.
The Sabodala mill is Senegal's first industrial gold processing facility and, to this day, it remains the largest gold operation in the country. It includes an efficient carbon-in-leach (CIL) processing plant using a conventional flowsheet. With a mill capacity of up to 4.5 Mtpa, the plant operates at nearly double its initial capacity following two expansions in 2012 and 2016. Plant modifications are currently in progress, with a target completion in 2021, to further increase production capability and efficiencies for processing Massawa’s high-grade oxide ore.
Based on the results of the Sabodala-Massawa preliminary feasibility study, a separate refractory ore treatment (ROT) plant using bacterial oxidation (or BIOX technology) is expected to be installed parallel to the existing plant to create a second processing stream. The ROT design would increase capacity by 1.2 Mtpa and allow for the processing of Massawa's refractory ore, which expected to begin in 2023.
For further information on Sabodala's current mining and mineral processing activities, please refer the NI 43-101 technical report for Sabodala filed in August 2019. For further information on the anticipated plant modifications and the processing of Massawa ore, please refer to the Sabodala-Massawa preliminary feasibility study press release dated July 26, 2020.