AMN - COTE D’IVOIRE: Upsize of Ity CIL plant completed

Endeavour Mining has completed the 25% volumetric upgrade of the carbon-in-leach (CIL) plant at its Ity Gold Mine in Côte d’Ivoire. This upgrade, completed on budget and on schedule, increases the plant's annual throughput from 4 million to 5 million tonnes, with this new rate achieved for the past two weeks.

Following commissioning of the 4 million tonnes per annum plant in April 2019, Endeavour launched optimisation and de-bottlenecking work to increase the plant capacity by 25% for a minimal cost of between $10-15 million.

Integration of components to achieve the increased throughput was carried out during the scheduled maintenance downtime with the plant achieving an annual throughput exceeding 5 million tonnes annual capacity for the last two weeks.

As part of the volumetric upgrade, capacity of the following items was increased: Variable speed drives for the primary apron feeder, vibrating grizzly, and lime screw feeder; tailings pumping and decant return; high-pressure gland water supply; tailings pumping and a second 50-tonne capacity oxygen plant. Upgrades to the tailings storage facility are ongoing.

The company has also obtained the highly prospective Mahapleu tenement, resulting in Endeavour now controlling the entire Birimian greenstone trend that stretches 125km along the Ity mine.

The Mahapleu tenement was purchased for a minimal cash consideration and a royalty based on a sliding scale depending on the gold price (varying from 1% below $1,200/ounce to 2.5% above $1,850/ounce).

An airborne Mag-VTEM survey was previously carried out on the Mahapleu tenement.

The Mahapleu central area, known as Doui, appears to host a large intrusion which has the potential to be similar in type and size to the one associated with the large mineralisation event that occurred at the Ity mine complex.

Endeavour considers this area to rank high within its greenfield exploration portfolio and expects to initiate ground surveys in early 2020.

The company's president and CEO Sébastien de Montessus said, “Building Ity on time and on budget has been a key achievement for 2019. With the plant upsize now complete, we are well-positioned for 2020 and beyond.

"We believe the increased plant capacity will help accelerate the value created through exploration.” 

Executive vice president Exploration and Growth Patrick Bouisset added: “We are very excited to have consolidated control of the entire 125km Birimian corridor along the Ity mine.

"The Mahapleu tenement is a highly prospective area which remains unexplored despite being located within proximity to the Ity mine.

"With our primary exploration objective of extending mine lives beyond 10 years for both Houndé and Ity well on track, we can now focus on increasing our greenfield exploration efforts in Côte d’Ivoire with Mahapleu ranking high within our large greenfield portfolio, alongside Fetekro.”

Endeavour operates four mines across Côte d’Ivoire (Agbaou and Ity) and Burkina Faso (Houndé, Karma). 

www.endeavourmining.com