AMN - BURKINA FASO: Positive initial Toega gold resource

B2Gold Corp has announced a positive initial inferred mineral resource estimate for the Toega gold deposit in Burkina Faso. The estimate is 17.530 million tonnes at 2.01 g/t gold for 1.13 million ounces at a cut-off grade of 0/6 g/t.

B2Gold says Toega, which is within the Kiaka project, has potential to be developed as an open pit mine.

The Toega mineralized zone extends 1200 metres along strike and is 430 metres wide and up to 400 metres deep.

The zone remains open along strike to the north-northeast and down dip.

Recent drilling has intersected good grade in a potential new mineralised zone with drilling is ongoing to infill and determine the ultimate size of the Toega zone, and to further test the new zone.

A total of 165 drill holes for 37,776 metres of drilling were used in the estimate. Inferred resources are supported by a nominal drill hole spacing of 100 by 100 metres, however, 65% of the reported resource has been drilled to a 50 by 50 metre, or tighter, drill hole spacing.

The resources are reported within a pit shell run using a gold price of U$1400 per ounce, an average gold recovery of 86.2% based on preliminary metallurgical test work, an assumed pit slope parameter of 50 degrees and preliminary costs based on input from other B2Gold mining operations.

Costs used for pit generation are a mining cost of US$2.50 per tonne mined, processing cost of US$10.00 per tonne and G&A cost of US$2.10 per tonne processed.

B2Gold has five operating gold mines and numerous exploration and development projects in various countries including Nicaragua, the Philippines, Namibia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Colombia and Finland.

In 2018, with the planned first full year of production from the Fekola mine in Mali, consolidated gold production is forecast to be between 910,000 and 950,000 ounces. This represents an increase in annual consolidated gold production of about 300,000 ounces for the company in 2018 versus 2017.

The Fekola mine achieved commercial production on November 30, 2017, a month ahead of the revised schedule and four months ahead of the schedule announced in the optimised feasibility study.

Ramp up to full-scale production at Fekola is ahead of schedule with gold production well above budget in each of the ramp-up months, beating original recovery, grade and plant availability estimates in the study design.

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