Equal partners
Prepared by Perth, Australia-based Lycopodium, the study envisages integrating Ntotoroso into Normandy’s larger, adjacent Yamfo-Sefwi gold project, now in the latter stages of its own feasibility study.
An enlarged treatment plant could be built at Yamfo-Sefwi to process, on an annual basis, 5 million tonnes of primary and oxide ore blended at a 70-to-30 ratio.
Assuming a long-term gold price of US$270 per oz., Ntotoroso has an initial proven and probable reserve, within zones A and E, of 14 million tonnes grading 2.36 grams per tonne, or in excess of 1 million contained ounces gold.
Cutoff grades are between 0.69 and 1.04 grams per tonne, while the strip ratio is 2.7-to-1. However, further mineralized zones are to be modelled into the feasibility study in the coming months.
Metallurgical tests indicate that semi-autogenous grinding and ball milling, followed by carbon-in-leach recovery, will result in recoveries of 92% for primary and 95% for oxide ores.
The study estimates that Ntotoroso could produce 120,000 oz. gold per year for the first five years at an average cash cost of US$177 per oz.
The total capital required for the enlarged processing plant, which would be built 2 km away at Kenyase, is estimated to be US$115 million. The total capital cost of bringing the Ntotoroso portion of the project into production is estimated to be US$33 million, of which US$28 million would be directed toward building the processing plant.
The feasibility study also considered a toll-treatment scenario that would boost direct cash costs by US$43 per oz.
The feasibility study will be considered in the coming months by the board of Moydow and Normandy’s jointly held Ghanaian subsidiary, Rank Mining. A production decision will be taken soon thereafter.
Late last year, Moydow was granted two new prospecting licences, named Hwidiem and SW Yamfo, within the Yamfo-Sefwi gold belt.
Hwidiem covers 24.7 sq. km and abuts the southeastern property boundary of the Ntotoroso licence, about 3 km southeast of Zone E.
The SW Yamfo licence covers 45.3 sq. km in the Yamfo area, about 10 km north of the proposed new mill site, immediately west and south-west of a cluster of gold deposits on licences wholly owned by Normandy. Moydow wants to consolidate its position within the Yamfo-Sefwi corridor and apply its new exploration methods to this region.
Specifically, the company will use a multi-element, lithogeochemical exploration approach to search for potentially blind, intrusive-hosted gold deposits similar to Zone E, discovered by Moydow in the late 1990s.
Mantled by a subtle gold-in-soil anomaly, Zone E is atypical of the Sefwi gold deposits in that it is intrusive-hosted and situated 1 km off the main structural break.
Be the first to comment on "Feasibility complete at Ntotoroso"