Manas cuts costs at Shambesai
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold developer Manas Resources has decreased the estimated costs for its Shambesai project, in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Manas told shareholders on Thursday that work to optimise the project schedule and capital cost estimates had resulted in preproduction capital estimates for the Shambesai project declining from $41-million to $30-million.
The capital costs savings resulted mainly from the staged timing of the buying of mining equipment and the deferral of infrastructure expenditure.
Estimated total preproduction and sustaining capital costs have also declined from $48-million to $44-million, with Manas saying there were further opportunities to reduce this figure with ongoing pricing enquiries.
Meanwhile, a new pit design for the Shambesai main pit had reduced material movement by 50%, while grades had increased by 13% to over 4 g/t gold. This was expected to reduce the average life-of-mine cash costs per ounce, as well as the capital costs for the mining equipment.
The new pit design was based on a gold price of $1 100/oz, rather than the previous $1 500/oz, and resulted in a significantly smaller, more profitable pit, reflecting the removal of uneconomic ounces at the lower gold price.
Manas noted that work was ongoing to produce a mine schedule and diluted ore reserves for the recommended pit design.
Based on the current resource, the Shambesai project was expected to deliver 241 000 oz of gold over a four-and-a-half-year mine life. The project, with a throughput of 550 000 t/y would produce an average of 55 000 oz/y of gold, assuming treatment of all oxide and sulphide ore reserves falling within the design pit.
Meanwhile, Manas said on Thursday that the company would also start a prefeasibility study on a potential underground mine design, which would initially target a resource of 660 000 t, grading 5.9 g/t gold within 120 m vertically of the new pit design.
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