May 2014
MODERN MINING
9
MINING News
Côte d’Ivoire’s investor-friendly new min-
ing code, developed in close collaboration
with its mining industry, will accelerate
the country’s emergence as a significant
gold producer, Randgold Resources Chief
Executive Mark Bristow told a media brief-
ing held in Abidjan recently. Randgold
operates the Tongon gold mine in Côte
d’Ivoire and has extensive exploration
holdings elsewhere in the country.
Bristow noted that the depletion of
the world’s mature goldfields had shifted
gold miners’ focus to new regions, notably
in Africa. Despite the continuing fallback
in supply from South Africa, once the
world’s largest gold producer, Africa still
accounted for 20 % of global gold output,
thanks to the recent growth of the gold
mining industries elsewhere on the conti-
nent, notably in West Africa.
“Considering the continent’s vast min-
eral wealth, however, it still has a long way
to go to deliver on its full potential,”Bristow
said. “Investors are deterred by the politi-
Côte d’Ivoire’s new mining code is investor-friendly
cal and infrastructural risks associated with
Africa, but in Côte d’Ivoire we have shown
how these challenges can be overcome by
a true partnership between a mining com-
pany, the government and the people.”
This spirit of cooperation was evident in
the process of formulating the new code,
said Bristow, and he was sure that the
country’s mining companies would also be
involved in the finalisation of the decree of
application which will lay down the rules
for the code’s implementation.
Partnership implied a long term com-
mitment to mutual goals between the
partners, Bristow said. Randgold’s com-
mitment to Côte d’Ivoire was evident
from its nurturing of the Tongon project
through a protracted civil war and its
investment in the development of the
mine in the aftermath of that war. The
mine was commissioned amidst the unrest
which followed the disputed outcome of a
presidential election but even so it made
a profit in its first quarter of operation and
every quarter since, and has made a signifi-
cant contribution to the State’s treasury at
a time when it was most needed.
“Tongon has made good progress in
dealing with a number of technical chal-
lenges but the issue of lower than expected
recoveries is still being addressed. As we
have reported before, this requires the
expansion of the flotation circuit which is
scheduled to be commissioned at the start
of 2015, and the associated pressure on
throughput and costs will have to be man-
aged carefully,” he said.
“Challenges in reaching consistent
availability in the crushing plant have
resulted in a joint decision with the sup-
plier Sandvik to change the current
equipment to conventional Sandvik
CH660 cone crushers. Randgold is work-
ing closely with Sandvik to combine the
replacement with an upgraded flow sheet
including additional equipment and cir-
cuits to achieve the required capacity with
an improved performance.”
