Orezone to commission Bomboré plant expansion in Q4

Orezone Gold (TSX: ORE) is on track to commission a new hard rock plant later this year at its operating Bomboré mine in Burkina Faso that will boost production to more than 170,000 oz. gold per year, the company said Wednesday.Last year the open-pit mine produced 118,746 oz. gold, exceeding the mid-point of Orezone’s annual guidance of 110,000-125,000 ounces.By the end of December Orezone had completed more than half of the engineering work for the 2.5-million tonne-per-year hard rock plant, the first phase of an envisioned two-stage project.Concrete installation is three months ahead of schedule; all the major components of the SAG mill are en route to the site; earthworks for the expansion of the tailings storage facility have begun; and 82% of the value of procured equipment has been awarded, the company said. All five carbon-in-leach (CIL) tank ring beams have been poured.Stage twoOrezone continues to evaluate the timing of the second stage expansion, which would augment production to 225,000-250,000 oz. per year.The second stage would increase the nameplate hard rock throughput to 5 million tonnes per year. With a 5-million tonne per year crusher installed in the first stage, the expansion would primarily consist of a ball mill, pebble crusher, thickener, four additional CIL tanks and a gold room upgrade.Capex for the first phase has been pegged at about $85 million. The full expansion is estimated to run to $168 million and the company says the project is fully funded.In July the company received a $58 million senior secured loan from Coris Bank. The bank is based in Burkina Faso and is one of the largest in West Africa.Orezone owns 90% of the mine with the Burkina Faso government holding the remaining 10%.Bomboré, 85 km east of the capital of Ouagadougou, started commercial production in December 2022 with a 6-million-tonne-per-year oxide plant.5M contained ouncesThe mine’s oxide and hard rock resource stands at 179.3 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.78 gram gold per tonne for 4.5 million oz. contained gold and another 20 million inferred tonnes grading 0.95 gram gold for 610,000 ounces.Orezone plans to continue exploration along Bomboré’s14-km long mineralized trend, which only has been drilled to an average depth of about 200 metres.Mining focused investment firm Resource Capital Funds owns about 16% of the Vancouver-based company while West African investment group Nioko Resources is Orezone’s largest shareholder with a 19.9% stake.Nioko is also the largest shareholder in Hummingbird Resources (LSE: HUM), which owns the Yanfolila mine in Mali, the Kouroussa mine in Guinea and the Dugbe project in Liberia.Orezone shares traded at C$0.70 apiece on Wednesday afternoon in Toronto, giving it a market cap of about C$318 million. Its shares traded within a 52-week range of C$0.58 and C$0.91.Analysts at Canaccord have a target price on the stock of C$1.20 per share. That is a discount to other gold producers under the brokerage’s coverage due to the company’s 100% exposure to Burkina Faso. A combination of resource nationalism, coups and jihadist-linked violence is making Burkina Faso and other countries in West Africa increasingly difficult to navigate for many Western mining companies.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com