JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The harmonisation of many of the mining codes of West African states and the subsequent spirit cross-border infrastructural cooperation is boosting the region as a mining investment destination, Mining Weekly Online can report.
By and large, the regulatory framework for the mining industry among the members of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) is fairly similar across borders.
This has been followed by energy and transport infrastructure cooperation, which is having a positive spinoff for mining companies.
The regional Ecowas organisation is made up of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.
"There's a lot of cooperation," Gold Fields executive West Africa vice-president Peter Turner tells Mining Weekly Online, which was part of a media delegation to the Tarkwa and Damang gold operations at the invitation of the JSE-listed Gold Fields.
Turner believes that fast-growing West Africa is the correct destination. "We're in the right place," he reiterates.
Gold Fields has been gold mining in Ghana for the past 15 years and now sees an expanding future for itself in the highly prospective and relatively investor-friendly West African region.
Gold Fields' aspirations in Mali are beginning to be played out in its intense exploration of the Yanfolila belt.
Gold Fields' vision is to be a producer of one million ounces of gold a year in West Africa in five year, and is already three-quarters of the way to that target with Tarkwa and Damang, both in Ghana.
The company's well-capitalised Tarkwa gold operation is looking to mining 130-million tons a year of ore that will yield 750 000 oz/y of gold.
The 240 000 oz/y Damang mine, which until recently was facing "orderly closure", now a new lengthy growth horizon to 2019 and an aspiration to extend that to 2025, brought about by a fresh approach to crushing coupled with an intense exploration programme.
Further, Gold Fields' Komana-Sankarani gold project in Mali is expected to eventuate into a mine project in the next three years.
If it does, it could well be the one additional gold mine that Gold Fields is looking for to push it to the annual production figure of one million ounces.
Turner envisages that Gold Fields will embark on new greenfield gold projects in northern and southern Ghana and Mali and sees the company's Ghana base as being an excellent springboard into the region as a whole.
"We have ports, infrastructure and power, and we're ideally positioned with Ghana as our central hub," he adds.
The company is bullish on the prospects in the Yanfolila belt, where Gold Fields acquired the Komana project from Glencar in November, providing the company with advanced drilling projects.
The Yanfolila project in southern Mali is a shallow low-cost prospect with "free dig" potential in a relatively high-grade area.
Gold Fields West African exploration head Serge Nitiema says exploration drilling continually yields encouraging mineralisation and some gold is visible to the naked eye. There is access to nearby water and power.
Komana is the most advanced of 13 Gold Fields exploration projects under resource definition in the West African region and one of three at scoping stage.
It is anticipated that the scoping studies on Komana East and West will be completed by December.
Oxfam America and Ecowas two years ago collaborated on the creation of a common mining code for West Africa, to help the 15 member countries to adhere to uniform standards created jointly by governments and citizens, and increase protection of human rights and the environment while promoting investment.
The agreement states that the new mining code's primary objective is "to facilitate the contribution of civil society in the process of forming a common mining policy that is favourable to the poor, respectful of the protection principles of the environment and of human rights, and that renders the government and the mining companies responsible through good governance practices".