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AngloGold Ashanti is constantly coming up with the same answer during its continual assessment of where this 40 000-employee gold-mining major can generate the most value.
"The answer is clear," AngloGold Ashanti CEO Alberto Calderon emphasised during this week's third-quarter results presentation. "The best opportunities remain within."
Firstly, AngloGold Ashanti is committed to lifting performance from its core assets, driving margin growth through cost discipline, which is continuing to do what it has done well since beginning its new journey under Calderon in 2021.
The Full Asset Potential initiative he put in place has been valuable in keeping the cost-per-ounce measure in real terms. The site-led programme sets out to improve operational performance and ensure that assets operate at their full potential through step-change improvements in mine planning, productivity, and costs. It involves detailed analysis, benchmarking, and advanced analytics to identify opportunities, reduce dilution, increase ore tonnes mined, and lower costs.
It has helped to improve AngloGold's position of the cost curve and to deliver on its guidance as well as to unearth the organic growth options.
Having helped the Obuasi mine in Ghana to begin to develop a consistent operating cadence as it ramps up, it has also spotlighted the scalability and life-extension potential of other assets amenable to relatively low-risk, low-capital leverage within the framework of existing footprints, infrastructure and knowledge.
"The returns, as you can imagine, are more than competitive," Calderon commented during his elevation into the spotlight of the Geita mine in northwestern Tanzania, near the shores of Lake Victoria, which impressed visiting media, including Mining Weekly, during our visit there several years ago.
"We're committed to bringing some of our most exciting internal opportunities to life and we'll start today with Geita, our tier-one asset," Calderon reported. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
"For years, Geita has been viewed as a world-class mine with a relatively short reserve life. That's completely changing. This is a tier-one operation by every measure - consistent delivery, strong margins and exceptional operational stability. What's often overlooked is the geological quality. Geita is located in the Lake Victoria greenstone belt on the Tanzanian carton, part of the same gold province that holds Kibali and North Mara.
"After two decades of mining, large parts of the concession remain under-explored with compelling structural and geotechnical targets pointing to significant potential," Calderon pointed out.
Geita, with opencast and underground mines producing around 500 000 oz/y, is underpinned by 3.5-million reserve ounces and seven-million-plus resource ounces.
"We're now showcasing the next chapter for Geita, a mine positioned to remain a tier-one asset for at least the next 20 years, but in reality, it going to be much longer than that," Calderon forecast, while displaying a slide depicting the plan to unlock further value.
"We're allocating a total $50-million, an additional $15-million a year, to exploration. With that investment, we expect to grow reserves by about 60%, to increase life from around 7.5 years today to about 10 years or more."
One opencast and three underground production fronts will be maintained as a conceptual study proceeds to evaluate increasing processing capacity by one-million tons a year through upgrading and maintain a tailings storage facility (TSF) capacity by incremental extension. This will be followed by the construction of a new TSF in mid-2030s.
The focus is on near-mine drilling, with the mill expansion conservatively forecast to require capital expenditure of about ...