Ian Cockerill, CEO, commented “We are proud to have achieved our first gold pour at Lafigué, which, alongside the first gold pour at the Sabodala-Massawa Biox expansion that we achieved in April, marks the successful completion of the recent phase of investment and growth that we started in Q2-2022. We now begin a new phase of increased free cash flow generation, de-levering and enhanced shareholder returns.
The Lafigué project is the fifth project that we have successfully built in West Africa in the last decade, which is a testament to the strength of our in-house project construction team and is a demonstration of our competitive advantage in West Africa, the world’s most prospective and largest gold producing region.
Lafigué is an excellent example of our ability to leverage this advantage by self-generating a project pipeline. We discovered Lafigué for a cost of $31 million, equivalent to an industry-low discovery cost of just $12 per ounce of M&I resources.
The project was quickly advanced through technical studies and permitting, before construction was launched in Q4-2022, and first gold was delivered only 21 months later for a low capital intensity of approximately $150/oz of M&I resources.
In less than eight years we have transformed Lafigué from a discovery to production, creating a cornerstone asset that has the potential to produce over 200koz per year, at an industry leading all-in sustaining cost of approximately $900/oz for at least 13 years, improving the quality of our existing portfolio.
With the current phase of organic growth completed, we are now focused on quickly ramping up our recent development projects to maximise their returns and support our near-term capital allocation priorities of de-levering our balance sheet and enhancing our shareholder returns.”
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