Tietto Minerals Limited (ASX: TIE) has received positive results from an open-pit heap leach Scoping Study at its APG deposit, part of its 3.45Moz Abujar Gold Project in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa, which is on track to be West Africa’s next gold mine.
“Our APG Scoping Study has demonstrated the potential for Tietto to develop a second mine at Abujar; a standalone heap leach operation at the APG deposit that would allow us to bring forward gold production from that deposit and increase overall gold production early in the life of the Abujar Gold Project,” Managing Director, Dr Caigen Wang, said.
“We now have an option to essentially add up to a 50% increase in annual gold production at Abujar from building a heap leach at APG running in parallel to our 4.5Mpta CIL Abujar gold plant. Subject to the required testwork, feasibility studies and permitting, we believe we could be producing gold at APG by the end of Q4 2024.
“Although gold recovery from heap leaching fresh ore at APG is lower than conventional CIL, the lower operating costs of a heap leach allow the use of lower cut-off grades. This increases the amount of material presented to the optimiser at the gold price used for the Scoping Study, compared to conventional CIL processing.
“Our construction and operations team have first-hand experience in building and running heap leach operations in West Africa, and we will now move onto additional studies assessing the potential of this opportunity.
“We are working on another Abujar resource update for delivery in the first half of 2023. At current drilling rates, we expect it will include more than 100,000m of diamond drilling from March 2022 to the end of December 2022 to build on our April 2022 MRE. This new resource model will be used for mine update study to be delivered in the first half of 2023.
“Tietto is fully funded to production at Abujar with zero debt and zero gold hedging and we’re excited to be West Africa’s next gold producer within weeks. Our strategy points towards a strong balance sheet in 2023 to drive our growth ambitions.
“In the meantime, we continue to explore and drill across our project portfolio to build a larger gold inventory for gold production.”
Highlights:
➢ Scoping Study confirms potential for Tietto to develop a second standalone mine at Abujar’s APG deposit via a heap leach gold processing operation
➢ APG gold production forecast to average more than 100koz per year for the first three years, with 85koz annual gold production forecast over 10 years for 850koz gold recovered from 68Mt at 0.48 g/t Au
➢ APG operation to deliver strong financial returns over a 10-year mine life at an average production rate of 7.5Mtpa
➢ Gold recovered from an APG heap leach could potentially lift Abujar’s annual production profile to between 260koz to 300koz per year based on the DFS forecast2, adding to gold ores produced via Abujar’s 4.5Mtpa carbon-in-leach (CIL) plant
➢ APG study based on conventional open pit mining with a low strip ratio of 2.4:1 waste to ore
➢ APG heap leach project has an estimated pre-production CAPEX of US$98M (accuracy level of ±35%) with a payback period of 1.3 years at the study gold price of US$1750/oz
➢ Project3 post-tax NPV5% of US$247M and post-tax IRR of 63% at the study gold price
➢ Life of mine (LOM) revenue of US$1,491M and EBITDA of US$620M with average annual
free operating cashflow of US$52M pa for the first five years of mining operations
➢ Tietto plans further metallurgical studies and associated engineering design activities to support preparation for a detailed feasibility evaluation along with baseline studies to support permitting and the environmental approval pathway
➢ Tietto is advancing its dual “Drill and Build” strategy in 2022, driving rapid resource growth at Abujar with 120,000m of diamond drilling due for completion including:
➢ Extensional drilling at AG and APG, targeting Inferred Resources beyond LOM plan
➢ Aggressive regional exploration drilling – 20 exploration prospects within 10km of the Abujar Gold Plant
➢ Abujar Gold Project construction is fully funded; Tietto has no debt and no gold hedging – on target for first gold in December 2022
For further information please visit: https://www.tietto.com/
