Tietto Minerals has announced that commercial production has begun at its Abujar Gold Mine in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa.
“We are pleased to have reached this milestone at Abujar in less than 18 months after commencing earthworks on the process plant and I thank all members of the team for their efforts in achieving this result,” Managing Director and CEO Matt Wilcox said.
“Mining rates increased markedly during the quarter, and we anticipate delivering strong net cash flow over the second half as we optimise mining and milling after achieving commercial production during June,” Wilcox stated.
In June, mill throughput exceeded the DFS rate of 4.0 million tonnes annually. Tietto’s mill throughput is still being optimised, with high rates of more than 16,000 tonnes per day recorded in June. Tietto is optimistic that the mill will continuously exceed nameplate capacity in H2 2023.
Significant delays in pre-stripping caused mining rates to lag milling, requiring the mill to receive run-of-mine ore from the mining contactor until ore mining overtakes milling later in H2 2023. This has slowed the DFS production strategy of selectively feeding higher-grade ore blocks into the mill while storing lower and medium-grade ore.
Milling rates reached more than 100,000 tonnes per week in June, and Tietto milled more than 315,000 tonnes, but conveyor belt damage in the final week of the month decreased monthly mill operating time to 76%. Tietto estimates mill utilisations of 92% in Q3 2023, with safeguards in place to prevent a recurrence of this situation.
Tietto switched from depleted and debris-containing oxide mill feed in the March Quarter to mostly fresh rock mill feed late in June.
During the June quarter, grade control drilling revealed that contained aggregate gold reconciled well (10%) to the resource block models. Tietto will complete a grade control drilling program that will provide drilling data for at least the next quarter of production and more conclusive confirmation on the overall grade estimates.
