A hole drilled by
Situated near Kumasi, in the country’s Yamfo gold belt, Ntotoroso is at the feasibility stage. Normandy has almost completed its US$6.5-million earn-in for a 50% stake in the 77-sq.-km land package, held by
Based on an independent estimate by Pincock Allen & Holt, Zone E hosts a measured and indicated resource of 1.1 million oz. gold with an average grade of 2.6 grams per tonne, based on a cutoff grade of 1 gram. Drilling is currently testing for gold mineralization below the 160-metre-deep outline of the proposed open pit on Zone E.
Angle hole 352 hit 60 metres grading 4.82 grams gold, starting at a depth of 311 metres. This includes a 23-metre intercept grading 8.44 grams, which, in turn, includes a 14-metre intercept of 10.3 grams, at a vertical depth of 316.5 metres.
Brian Kiernan, president of Moydow Mines, believes these results show potential for higher-grade mineralization at depth. “Our first priority is to bring the open pit into production,” he says. “This discovery will assist us in refining our geological model and in preparing for further exploration aimed both at defining the deeper resource of higher-grade mineralization and identifying other surface-minable deposits.”
The government of Ghana holds rights to a 10% interest in Ntotoroso. Moydow holds other assets in Ghana, including a 31% stake in the producing Wassa mine, which poured a total of 68,000 oz. gold in the first eight months of this year.
Normandy is also active in Ghana, where it has a 90% direct interest in Yamfo-Sefwi, a land package covering numerous targets within the Sefwi greenstone belt in western Ghana. Although the belt is viewed as a gold camp in the making, it has no history of production.
Normandy and a previous partner began working the region in the early 1990s, and their soil-sampling programs revealed gold anomalies over a strike length of 40 km. By 1998, they had outlined a global resource that contained an estimated 4.3 million oz. gold in the Yamfo, Kenyase and Subenso deposits. An initial feasibility study revealed the project to be of economic interest.
That year, Normandy was able to secure 90% of the project by acquiring its former partner’s interest. By year-end, the resource inventory had climbed to more than 6 million contained ounces. A scoping study was completed for a combined sulphide-oxide operation at Kenyase, with road haulage from several nearby pits. Ntotoroso’s Zone E deposit is adjacent to the proposed Kenyase treatment plant site, which bodes well for its eventual development.
Normandy views the Yamfo-Sefwi project as being capable of producing 500,000 oz. gold annually at a cash cost of below US$200 per oz.
Normandy also operates gold mines in Australia and elsewhere in the world. For the 12 months ended June 30, 2000, the company produced 1.9 million oz. of the yellow metal. All its mines delivered a positive margin over the spot gold price.
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