AMN - BURKINA FASO: Avesoro increases Youga reserves 23%

Avesoro Resources has increased mineral reserves by 23% at its Youga Gold Project in Burkina Faso. Proven and probable reserves now stand at 14.74 million tonnes grading 1.72 g/t for 814,900 ounces of contained gold.

This has extended the mine life of the open-pit operation by an additional four years to 2031.

The 763sqkm Youga licence area contains the Youga, Ouare and Balogo deposits.

Measured and indicated resources total 22.16 million tonnes grading 1.67 g/t for 1.19 million ounces of gold and inferred resources stand at 7.6 million tonnes grading 1.5 g/t for 337,000 ounces of gold.

Avesoro's mine plan allows for production from the Youga pits to pause temporarily in 2021 with the Youga mill processing ore from Balogo and Ouare.

Operations at the previously mined Balogo satellite pit will recommence in December 2019 and continue to December 2020, when the pit will close. Balogo is 154km west of the Youga mine.

Development at Ouare, 44km east of Youga’s processing plant, will start with construction of a haul road in the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.

Production at Ouare is expected to start in the second quarter of next year and continue to early 2024.

Ore production from the Youga open-pits will recommence in the first quarter of 2023 until the operation ceases in early 2027.

Based on current reserves, Youga mill will then continue to process run-of-mine ore from the Ouare deposit and stockpile reclaim until the first quarter of 2031 when the mine is expected to close.

Average life-of-mine operating cash costs at the Youga mine are forecast to reach $877 per ounce with all in sustaining costs of $973 per ounce.

Avesoro also produces gold at its New Liberty mine in Liberia and expects total production from both mines to come in at more than 200,000 ounces of gold a year for the next four years.

Youga is about 180km southeast of the capital of Ouagadougou, adjacent to Burkina Faso’s border with Ghana.

The Youga licence contains seven open-pit deposits and a 1.1 million tonnes per year carbon-in-leach processing facility.

www.avesoro.com