Cora Gold Ltd on Monday said it would be able to deliver an economically ‘robust’ project at its flagship licence following the completion of a definitive feasibility study at the site.
Cora Gold shares were trading 10% higher at 4.68 pence each in London on Monday afternoon.
Cora Gold is a West Africa-focused gold explorer with three principal de-risked project areas within two known gold belts in Mali and Senegal. The Sanankoro licence is its flagship project, located in the Yanfolila Gold Belt, southern Mali.
The company reported maiden probable reserves, based on a gold price of $1,650 per ounce, of 1.30 grams of gold per tonne.
Meanwhile, the definitive feasibility study showed a 37% internal rate of return for the licence over a 1.5 year payback period, with an estimated $228 million of free cash flow over the life of mine.
The study also estimated a reserve mine life of 6.8 years, and 56,000 ounces per annum of average production.
Further, metallurgical test work confirmed LoM gold recovery of 90%, through a conventional 1.5 million tonnes per annum carbon-in-leach processing plant.
Cora Gold also released its optimised project economics, worked on concurrently with the completion of the definitive feasibility study.
The optimisations to the feasibility study were focused on capital expenditure savings, which delivered improved project economics. For example, a solar hybrid power option was incorporated into the plant design, delivering savings in both operating costs and carbon emissions.
The optimisations delivered a project with a 52% internal rate of return, 1.2 year payback period, and $234 million free cashflow over the life of mine.
Pre-production capital fell to $90 million from the $108 million outlined in the feasibility study.
Cora Gold added that 121,000 ounces of pit-optimised inferred resources, using the same parameters as reserves, offer the potential for an additional 2.5 years of mine life and an additional $76 million of additional free cashflow.
It reported significant potential upside from the exploration target, estimated to contain between 26.0 million tonnes and 35.1 million tonnes, with a grade range of 0.58 to 1.21 grams per tonne of gold for a potential 1.4 million ounces of gold.
The company also said that Lionhead Capital Advisors Proprietary Ltd has confirmed its continued support for the project, and is in discussions around a term sheet for up to $30 million.
Chief Executive Officer Bert Monro said: ‘The benefit of low strip ratio oxides is seen both in the mining and processing costs, and this has helped deliver a very robust project economically with low technical risk.
‘We are confident that with additional drilling we can significantly add to Sanankoro’s reserve mine life through both existing resource conversion and drilling the recently updated exploration target,’ Monro continued.
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