Zimbabwe’s Kuvimba signs $310 million lithium mine deal
The company did not name the investors, only saying they were "leading foreign British and Chinese companies in the global lithium market".
Shares in Canada’s Endeavour Mining (TSX:EDV) (OTCQX:EDVMF) were up almost 3% Wednesday morning after the company announced what it called a “significant” discovery at its Ity gold mine in Côte d’Ivoire.
The so-called “Bakatouo discovery” is characterized by its high grade and close to surface oxide and fresh mineralization, the company said in a statement. This suggests potential to supplement both the existing heap leach operation and a future Carbon-in-Leach (“CIL”) project, for which Endeavour Mining will conduct a feasibility study, expected in the last quarter of the year.
The Ity mine has produced more than 1.2 million ounces of gold in its over 20 years of operations and Endeavour is working on extending the mine life by at least another 10 years.
The company also said it has consolidated an 80km underexplored Birimian corridor on-trend with the Ity mine, which significantly increases its holdings in the district from 178km² to 664km².
“We are extremely pleased to have secured what we consider to be one of West-Africa’s most underexplored areas in the Birimian belts,” Patrick Bouisset, executive vice-president exploration and growth said in a statement.
“We believe that the exploration success at the Ity mine, which has grown to be nearly a 5-million-ounce endowment, is a good indication of the potential to find more skarn or shear-zone type multi-million ounce deposits along the same trend,” Bouisset said.
The Ity mine has produced more than 1.2 million ounces of gold in its over 20 years of operations. The Ity CIL project has the potential to extend the mine life by at least another 10 years.
Endeavour currently has five mines in Africa, including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso, and could produce between 575,000 and 600,000 ounces of gold this year at all-in sustaining costs ranging from $870 to $920 per ounce.
The stock was trading at Cdn $23.84 at 10:14 ET and it has jumped four-fold since the beginning of the year.
In 2015, the company produced 517,000 ounces of gold at all-in sustaining costs of $922 per ounce.
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Bakatouo discovery in 2012