PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The board of gold miner Resolute Mining has approved the expansion of its Syama gold mine, in Mali.

Resolute would now spend an initial $241-million to expand the existing sulphide openpit mine, and establish a one-million-ton-a-year oxide processing circuit to increase production to 270 000 oz/y over the first nine years of operations.

The expansion would extend Syama’s mine life to 15 years.

CEO Peter Sullivan said on Monday that the approval represented an important milestone in Resolute’s organic growth strategy, saying that the investment would also lower average cash costs and bring substantial benefits to shareholders.

Sullivan noted that negotiations for the engineering, procurement, construction and management contract for the expansion project were now under way, and said that orders for major equipment would be placed over the next four months, with demolition work expected to start in the September quarter.

Building of the new construction camp would start immediately.

A new mining contract was also under negotiation with an expanded mining fleet to be in place later this year, expected to increase mining rates, Sullivan said.

Meanwhile, Resolute would also proceed with further optimisation work following the positive outcomes of the Sarsfield feasibility study.

The study, which examined a potential reopening of the Sarsfield openpit at the Ravenswood gold mine, in Queensland, demonstrated further work was required in order to meet the company’s internal return hurdles.

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