Name of the Project
Fekola gold project.

Location
The project is located in south-west Mali, on the border between Mali and Senegal.

Client
B2Gold.

Project Description
The project comprises a conventional openpit owner-operated mining operation. The ultimate pit is planned for development in a sequence of six stages or cutbacks.

The final pit design will be about 2 km long, 800 m wide and 320 m deep, with an overall waste to ore (strip) ratio of 4.9:1.

The base case mine production schedule involves the movement of 32-million tonnes of material to sustain the processing of five-million tonnes a year of ore at an average grade of 2.37 g/t gold. High-, medium-, and low-grade ore will be blended throughout the mine life, with high- and medium-grade ore being prioritised to increase produced ounces and project value.

Fekola will produce an average of 374 000 oz/y to 400 000 oz/y in the first five years of production (2018 to 2022) and 365 000 oz/y to 390 000 oz/y over the first seven years of production (2018 to 2024).

A waste-rock storage facility will be built to the west of the openpit, and suitable mine waste will be used for the tailings storage facility rises to the north-east of the pit.

The mill will use a conventional flowsheet comprising single-stage primary crushing; a semiautogenous grind mill and ball mill grinding circuit with a pebble crushing grinding circuit; leach feed thickening, with thickener overflow treated through a carbon-in-column circuit; leaching followed by carbon-in-pulp adsorption; elution and gold recovery to doré; and cyanide destruction, tailings thickening and disposal circuits.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
Not stated.

Value
$499.7-million.

Duration
B2Gold declared commercial production at its Fekola mine in December 2017, achieving the milestone four months ahead of the original schedule, and one month ahead of the revised schedule.

Latest Developments
B2Gold has extended mineralisation at its Fekola mine 1 km to the north, with the positive drill results continuing to indicate potential for a larger openpit operation that could justify a relatively low capital cost plant expansion.

The increased mineral resource at the mine indicates potential to increase mill throughput tonnage and yearly gold production with moderate capital expenditure.

Based on about 192 000 m of exploration drilling in 928 drill holes, B2Gold has reported an updated indicated mineral resource estimate of 92.8-million tonnes at 1.92 g/t gold, for a total of 5.7-million ounces of gold.

An inferred mineral resource estimate of 26.5-million tonnes at 1.61 g/t gold, for a total of 1.3-million ounces of gold, has also been reported.

Probable reserves at the start of production at Fekola were 49.2-million tonnes at 2.35 g/t gold containing 3.7-million ounces. These initial reserves are contained within the updated resource, the company has said.

In addition, pit shells are run using a gold price of $1 250/oz and demonstrate Fekola's resiliency to lower gold prices.

The indicated mineral resource contains 90.6-million tonnes at 1.94 g/t gold for a total of 5.6-million ounces of gold and inferred mineral resources of 16.2-million tonnes at 1.58 g/t gold containing 844 000 oz of gold.

Additionally, exploration drill results further north of the new resource pit boundary demonstrate that gold mineralisation continues to the north, and remains open, indicating the potential to further expand mineral resources with additional drilling.

Meanwhile, the B2Gold operations team is designing a new mine plan based on the new Fekola mineral resource estimate, to establish new probable mineral reserves.

Simultaneously, an engineering study is under way to evaluate the Fekola mill expansion potential along with the evaluation of larger mining fleet options.

Current mill production rates have been averaging about 5.5-million tonnes a year, to date, this year.

The expansion study is focused on expanding mill throughput to 7.5-million tonnes a year.

The study is expected to be completed by the end of this year and the results will feed into the overall mine/mill expansion evaluation to optimise the economics of the significantly larger, new Fekola mineral resource.

As part of the expansion study, the Fekola mill ran a five-day campaign of 1.1 g/t gold ore in October to evaluate gold recovery on low-grade material for long-term planning purposes.

For the remainder of this year, exploration drilling will continue to the immediate north and west of Fekola, and at the Anaconda zones about 20 km from Fekola.

In 2019, the company plans to continue its successful drilling to convert Fekola's inferred resources to reserves, further explore through drilling the potential to the north and west of Fekola and continue drilling at and beneath the Anaconda saprolite zone. 

B2Gold intends to release more 2018 exploration results from these zones in November, in conjunction with the third quarter financial results.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Not stated.

On Budget and on Time?
Yes.

Contact Details for Project Information
B2Gold, tel +1 604 681 8371, fax +1 604 681 6209 or email investor@b2gold.com.