Mid-tier Canadian miner B2Gold (TSX:BTO)(NYSE: BTG) has announced year-end exploration results for the Fekola property and Anaconda area in Mali that continue to support the conversion of Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources within the resource pit boundary.
The Vancouver-based company, which poured first gold at Fekola in late 2017, noted that work has shown the mine can be extended to the north, adding that an updated resource model is expected to be completed in about three weeks.
In addition to the Fekola drill program, B2Gold completed this year over 45,000 metres of combined aircore, diamond and reverse circulation drilling in the Anaconda region.
The area, the company said, has an initial Inferred Mineral Resource estimate of 767,000 ounces of gold at 1.1 g/t in near-surface mineralization over 4.5 kilometres and up to 500 metres wide.
Drilling focused on increasing the known saprolite resources
at the Adder and Mamba zones and further testing the underlying sulphide
mineralization in the Mamba zone, B2Gold said.
The company is in the midst of a $50-million expansion at the Mali mine, which could take the operation’s processing throughput to 7.5-million tonnes a year, up from the current 6 million tonnes it generates.
The project will also extend the life of the mine, located
near Mali’s border with Senegal, and about 520 km from the country’s capital,
Bamako, to 2030.
The plan, B2Gold has said, is to have Fekola churning out
600,000 ounces of gold by 2020, helped by an enhanced mine plan and a larger
fleet.