Mid-tier Canadian miner\u00a0B2Gold (TSX:BTO)(NYSE: BTG)\u00a0will invest $50 million expanding\u00a0its 80%-owned Fekola mine in southwestern Mali, which could take the operation\u2019s gold output to 7.5-million tonnes a year from the current 6-million tonnes.<\/p>\n
The decision comes as the results of a preliminary expansion assessment (PEA), published on Wednesday<\/a>, recommended an expansion of the existing plant to process an additional 1.5-million tonnes a year, without requiring an extra ball mill or additional\u00a0power generation capacity.<\/p>\n The Vancouver-based company, which poured first gold at Fekola<\/a> in the last quarter of 2017, said that as result of the expansion the mine will produce more gold over a longer life. It will also have \u201cmore robust economics and higher average annual gold production, revenues and cash flows than the previous life of mine,\u201d it said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2018, its first full year of commercial production, Fekola exceeded expectations, churning out 439,068 ounces of gold, while B2Gold expected a maximum of 430,000 ounces.<\/p>\n Utilizing additional resources discovered in October, the mine could produce 550,000 ounces a year between 2020 and 2024 and 400,000 ounces between now and 2030, B2Gold said.<\/p>\n The PEA also predicts an increase in the net present value of Fekola of some $500 million and forecast life of mine pre-tax net cash flow of about $2.8 billion. The revised life of mine operating cash cost and all-in sustaining cost (AISC) would be between $500 and $700 per ounce respectively.<\/p>\n B2Gold\u00a0 said it was also assessing various optimization alternatives, including processing gold-bearing ore from the company\u2019s Anaconda project, which is situated north of Fekola, as well as installing solar power at the Fekola premises and \u201c\u2026\u00a0various tailings and waste disposal strategies\u201d.<\/p>\n This process would continue\u00a0through the second quarter of this year and would be incorporated into a revised Fekola life of mine plan, which is expected to be available early next year.<\/p>\n Fekola is located near Mali\u2019s border with Senegal, and about 520 km from the country\u2019s capital, Bamako. The country\u2019s government owns the reminding 20%.<\/p>\n The post B2Gold goes ahead with $50 million expansion of Fekola mine<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It could take the Malian mine gold output to 7.5-million tonnes a year from the current 6-million tonnes.<\/p>\n The post B2Gold goes ahead with $50 million expansion of Fekola mine<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1002,872,404,369,1070,518],"tags":[9,17,22,25,31,48,71,81],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1107682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1107830,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107682\/revisions\/1107830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1107682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1107682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1107682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}