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Tietto Minerals, an Australian company and gold developer in West Africa, has completed processing its first batch of gold ore from its newly built semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill in Cote d’Ivoire. 

The ore production comes approximately 12 months after the construction of the 3.45 million–ounce Abujar project. The company is expecting further gold production from the plant and predicts at least 260,000 ounces of gold by 2023.
 
Tietto Minerals launched the Abujar Gold Project as an open-pit mining operation. In July 2020, the company, through its subsidiary Tiebaya Gold applied for a mining license which it received in December 2020. The project’s definitive feasibility study (DFS) was completed in October 2021. 

Key findings were a mine life of 11 years and an estimated pre-production capital investment of approximately $200 million. 
 
The project is 30 kilometres from Daloa city in central-western Côte d’Ivoire, and includes a 1,114 square kilometres area with three contiguous exploration tenements, the Middle, South, and North. 

It has a north-to-northeast orientated gold corridor across the three tenements with a strike length of more than 70 kilometres. 

Estimated reserves at the site based on the Abujar Gludehi (AG) and the Abujar-Pischon-Golikro (APG) satellite deposits, which are 8 kilometres apart, were estimated at 34.4 million tonnes (Mt) grading 1.3 grams per tonne of gold, with a contained metal of 1.45 million ounces (Moz).

The processing plant will have a design throughput capacity of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). The run-of-mine (ROM) ore will be crushed in a primary jaw crusher and then sent to a SAG mill through the stockpile feed conveyor. The screen oversize will be transferred to the pebble crushing circuit and then to the mill feed conveyor.

The milling circuit slurry pumps to a 14-outlet cyclone cluster. The cyclone overflow with a P80 of 115 µm will feed the carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit. The CIL train features seven tanks 14.3 m in diameter and 16.3 m-high each. 

Carbon stripping will be performed on the ore in the elution circuit using a Split Anglo American Research Laboratory (AARL) system. The solution will be fed to electrowinning cells. Oxidation of the steel wool cathodes will be carried out in a calcining oven. 

The final product will be smelted in a diesel-fuelled barring furnace to give gold doré bars.

We are now processing ore at our Abujar Gold Project in Côte d'Ivoire West Africa ahead of our first #gold pour later this month.
We're excited to be West Africa's next gold producer & look forward to Abjuar achieving 260,000oz of gold production in its 1st year of operation $TIE pic.twitter.com/hjIjVLHBlW

— Tietto Minerals (@TiettoMinerals) December 16, 2022

Raw water for the project was supplied from a water storage dam and pumped to a 12,000 cubic metres raw water pond. 

Process water came from an 18,000 cubic metres pond. Potable water during the project construction came from a water treatment plant fed by a local bore field to a storage tank at the plant. 

The electricity needs of the mine will come from the 90kV Daloa substation, which is 30 kilometres from the project site, via a new 90 kV transmission line to a 90/11kV switchyard near the processing plant.
 
Primero was in charge of the CIL plant’s process and engineering design, procurement management, and commissioning services. DFS metallurgical test work was done by ALS Global, while Morrell Comminution Consulting completed comminution modelling studies. 

Dempers & Seymour conducted the geotechnical assessment of open-pit and underground workings while ECG Engineering performed powerline and electrical assessments. Envitech conducted flora and fauna surveys and environmental permitting with Mintrex responsible for study management, process plant and infrastructure design, and metallurgical overview for the DFS. 

RPM Global provided the resource estimation, mine planning, and ore reserve statement, while Sahara Geoservices was responsible for surface surveys.

Top Photo: Abujar mining operations (tietto.com)