Gold OperationsEndeavour owns two operating mines that are currently producing gold at a rate of approximately 195,000 ounces per year:
NZEMA GOLD MINE (90%), GHANA
The Nzema Gold Mine is located in south-western Ghana, approximately 280km west of Ghana's capital city, Accra. In June 2009, the Corporation announced its decision to proceed with the development of the Nzema Gold Mine with a designed mill throughput of 2.1 million tonnes per annum ("Mtpa") for a target production of 100,000 ounces of gold per annum across an estimated life of 10 years.
Construction of the processing plant and associated infrastructure was successfully completed and first gold was poured in January 2011, with full scale production beginning in April 2011. The operation produced 90,026 ounces during 2011. The Nzema mine consists of open mining from a chain of shallow oxide pits along the Salman trend plus the Anwia deposit 8km west of the plant. Ore is processed at the 1.6 Mtpa to 2.1 Mtpa plant (depending on ore type) and gold is extracted through a standard gravity-CIL process. The processing plant is located west of the Salman Central pits and is connected to the national power grid via a substation.
Work is currently underway to explore additional oxide resources both along the Salman trend and the immediate area with the objective of increasing mine life and/or throughput. In addition, the potential of the underlying sulphide mineralization along the Salman trend is being evaluated.
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YOUGA GOLD MINE (90%), BURKINA FASO
The Youga Gold Mine is located approximately 180km southeast of Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso. Youga has been in production since 2008 and produced 87,264 ounces of gold in 2011. The mine is targeted to produce 85,000 to 90,000 ounces of gold in 2012.
Ore is processed through a conventional gravity-CIL plant with a design capacity of 1.0 Mtpa. Youga is a hard rock, drill and blast mining open pit operation. Mining activities are being carried out under contract. Grid power is delivered to site from Ghana via a 21 km transmission line. In addition, year round water supply is available from the nearby Nakambe river.
Endeavour's 2011 exploration activities at Youga yielded positive results increasing resources and reserves and extending mine life by over 2 years. Exploration in 2012 is expected to further increase resources and reserves and mine life.
In addition, Endeavour is continuing to develop the Ouaré deposit 40km to the northeast of Youga with the expectation of defining a stand-alone project which will benefit from the existing infrastructure at Youga.
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