Projects
Banfora Gold Project
The Banfora Gold Project is located in the south-west of Burkina Faso, West Africa, in a major gold producing district, host to Randgold’s Tongon Mine (4.2 million oz Au) only 30 kilometres to the South, Resolute’s Syama Mine (5.0 million oz Au mined and 6.5 million oz Au in resources) 50 kilometres to the West, and Randgold/Anglo Gold Ashanti’s Morila Mine (6.5 million oz Au) 75 kilometres to the North-West.
The project area contains six exploration licenses covering a total of 1,200 square kilometres and encapsulates the entire Loumana Birimian greenstone belt within Burkina Faso. The project area is easily accessible by road and in close proximity to the town of Banfora. A 100-kilometre sealed road connects Banfora town to the city of Bobo Diolasso and a further 350 kilometres to Burkina Faso's capital city Ouagadougou. Grid power is located approximately 30 kilometres from the Eastern boundary of the project.
In January 2013 the Company announced results of the Bankable Feasibility Study (“BFS”) which demonstrate the viability of developing the Banfora Gold Project to be the next gold mine in Burkina Faso. The BFS was based on a conventional 2Mtpa Carbon In Leach (“CIL”) processing plant and open pit mining operation using contractor mining, up-scalable to +4Mtpa with construction to occur over a period of 15 months and first gold anticipated in Q4 2014.
The BFS supports a maiden Ore Reserve estimate of 1.05Moz of gold1 and increases the Company’s global Mineral Resource estimate to 4.9Moz of gold2 with 90% of the Resource and Reserve estimates occuring at shallow depths of above 150 metres and remain ‘open’ indicating the strong likelihood for further increases through ongoing drilling.
The BFS was coordinated by Lycopodium Minerals Pty Ltd with input from various industry consultants. Key commercial results of the BFS are presented below within Table 1 (For full details please click here). A gold price of US$1,300 was used for pit optimisations and base case financial modelling.
1 Refer to table 3 Ore Reserve Estimates Banfora Gold Project below
2 Refer to table 2 Banfora Gold Project Mineral Resource Estimates @ 0.5 and 0.9 g/t Gold Lower Cut below
Huge Upside Potential
Resource and Reserve growth
Huge upside potential exists at the Banfora Gold Project, with step out drilling around current pit designs and current infill drilling to convert resources to reserves, including 13m @ 69.9g/t gold from 19m (Incl. 4m @ 207.9g/t gold from 19m) and 14m @ 36.50g/t gold from 56m (Incl. 4m @ 125.1g/t gold from 65m) from the Nogbele gold deposit (Refer to ASX announcement of 24/09/2012 for full details).
Depth extensions
Significant potential exists for depth extensions to both push the pits deeper as well as underground potential. Only 10% of the current resources and reserve estimates sit below 150 meters vertical depth. Deeper drill results at Stinger for example include 17m @ 4.26g/t gold from 261m, 22m @ 3.19g/t gold from 119m, 5m @ 15.71g/t gold from 103m and 10m @ 8.67g/t gold from 141m indicate that high grade mineralisation continues at depth. (Refer to ASX announcement of 02/07/2012 and 13/11/2012 for full details).
Regional discovery
The Company’s huge landholding of 1,200 square kilometres at Banfora Gold Project remains largely untested. Several regional targets such as Ouahiri and Stinger require further drilling with anticipated resource growth, as well as several high priority soil geochemical anomalies that require first pass drilling in 2013.
Expandability of plant
The proposed plant will be expandable from 2Mtpa to +4Mtpa with anticipated ore reserve growth. Comminution modelling and process plant layout design for the 2Mtpa circuit support a readily up-scalable operation to +4Mtpa through the addition of a Ball Mill and extension of the leaching circuit and associated support services. Importantly, this option enables production to continue on target, substantially lowers and de-risks funding requirements and enables future upgrades to be funded by cash flows from the existing operation.
Silver
There is also potential for silver credits from the operation. Drill results of up to 10g/t Ag have been reported at the Nogbele deposit. Any silver recovered in the process plant will form part of the gold doré and will result in credits applied at the time of refinement.
Heap leach studies
Initial metallurgical results showed excellent recoveries averaging +90% gold after only 45 days leaching time. Gryphon is now undertaking detailed metallurgical heap leach testing which could potentially target low cost cash flows early in the project life. Results from detailed metallurgical test work are expected in Q2 2013 with a feasibility decision to follow.
West Africa Regional targeting
Ongoing exploration at high priority targets in Mauritania and Cote d’Ivoire have the potential to bring through a pipeline of new organic discoveries for Gryphon.
Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve Estimates
The Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimates were independently estimated and classified by CSA Global to a standard suitable for reporting in accordance with the 2004 Australasian Code for Reporting of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (2004 JORC Code). Statistical and geostatistical analysis was undertaken on the mineralised material prior to grade estimation of the resources (2004 JORC code & NI43-101) using Ordinary Kriging.
This has resulted in estimated Mineral Resources above a 0.5 g/t Au cut-off for the Project of 72.3 million tonnes at 1.5 g/t Au for 3.4 million ounces of gold of global Measured and Indicated Resources, and 39.3 million tonnes at 1.2 g/t Au for 1.5 million ounces of gold of global Inferred Resources.
