KALGOORLIE (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner AngloGold Ashanti is targeting first gold from its North Bullfrog gold mine, in Nevada, by the end of 2025.
The miner’s chief development officer, Terry Briggs, said on the sidelines of the Diggers & Dealers conference that the feasibility study for the North Bullfrog project was due for completion before the end of this year.
While first gold from the heap leach circuit is targeted for the end of 2025, the project would ramp up to an ultimate steady-state production of 100 000 oz/y by 2026, with Briggs telling Mining Weekly Online that the project would have a mine life of around ten years.
The permitting process and the environmental baseline studies for North Bullfrog are continuing, and AngloGold Ashanti is expecting permitting to be in place shortly.
“North Bullfrog is a small satellite deposit. The real prize is the expanded Silicone project. We already have four-million ounces defined at the Silicone deposit and have released an exploration target of six- to eight-million ounces at Merlin, so that is a minimum ten-million ounces,” Briggs said.
A conceptual study on the expanded Silicone study is currently under way.
Meanwhile, AngloGold Ashanti is days away from a shareholder vote on the company’s plans to move its primary listing to the NYSE and to re-domicile from South Africa to the UK. The company in June ceased share trading on the ASX.