The Makabingui Gold Project: Senegal’s second industrial gold mine

Currently, Senegal is home to only one industrial gold mining project, the Sabodala 200,000-ounce gold operation from Teranga Gold.

But Teranga Gold is not the only player in the Senegalese gold market.

Australian listed Bassari Resources is 100 percent focused on bringing a significant gold production project into production.

The Makabingui Project is the company’s most advanced project, with recent feasability studies showing that Makabingui has an average gold grade of >5.6g/t (up to 7.9 g/t), C1 cash costs of $683/oz, capital cost of $12.1million and an IRR of 404 percent.

Strategic alliance, strategic thinking

Bassari Resources has signed a strategic alliance with Vanture International, a Chinese sourcing and procurement firm for the supply of the processing equipment for the mine.

“We have been able to keep capital costs low at Makabingui through the use of existing infrastructure and equipment in Senegal, all owned by Bassari,” says the company. “We have an existing gravity plant which will be upgraded to treat hard rock ore from Makabingui, a water dam to supply water to the processing plant, an established camp to accommodate employees and mobile equipment which will be used during the construction period as well as supporting operations.”

Operations will commence mining high grade open pits where mineralisation starts at surface. The high-grade ore will be trucked to the processing plant which is capable of extracting gold from both gravity and CIL processes. We are confident in the high metallurgical recoveries of 95 percemt, due to the comprehensive metallurgical program undertaken from an early stage in the resource drilling program.”

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Progress

The company has released an update on the progress of the mine as well as a significant drilling program extension. The “significant advances” include a number of key staff who will work on the construction and operation of the mine have been identified and “preliminary talks” have been held with regards to employment.

The company has also revealed that a Presidential decree has been forwarded by the Minister of Mines to the Prime Minister, for signing prior to signing by the President of the country.

Bassari Resources is targeting an early 2018 production date for the Mkabingui Gold project, and the recent updates are showing significant progress and that the company is well on its way to achieving that start date.