Mali helps boost gold-miner's reserves base (Randgold Res.)
Mining Weekly - April 22, 2005
London- and Nasdaq-listed gold-miner Randgold Resources said this week that increases in its attributable resources and reserves were largely due to progress at its Mali operations.
In a speech to the European Gold Forum, in Zurich, CEO Dr Mark Bristow said that the company’s attributable resources had grown some two-million ounces between December 2003 and December 2004 to 10,02-million ounces, while attributable reserves increased slightly to 2,51-million ounces during the same period.
The company’s Loulo project was the main contributor to the growth, where deep drilling of the Yalea orebody had increased total measured, indicated and inferred resources to 5,2-million ounces.
Total resources at Loulo currently stood at eight-million ounces, and the adjacent opencast mine was scheduled to start producing in July.
At the company’s Morila joint venture, also in Mali, Bristow said that drilling of the MSZ extension to the main orebody enabled partial replacement of the resources depleted by last year’s mining operation, and that further drilling was planned to convert the additional resources into reserves.
