Endeavour plans to build on its West African operating model to improve operating and capital expenses with Teranga’s assets.
The company plans for Teranga’s Sabodala-Massawa, in Senegal, to become a flagship asset alongside Ity and Houndé.
Teranga’s Wahgnion mine, in Burkina Faso, offers immediate production and cash flow diversification, with significant operating cost and efficiency savings as part of Endeavour’s West African operations. Golden Hill, an advanced exploration project in Burkina Faso, is within trucking distance of Endeavour’s Houndé mine and offers potential as a satellite deposit.
This is the second major acquisition by Endeavour in West Africa in 2020. In May, the company closed the acquisition of Semafo Inc. with shareholders approval of the $1-billion all-shares takeover.
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Egypt Opening up to Mineral Exploration and Development
Egypt has awarded 82 exploration blocks to 11 companies in an international bid for mineral exploration rights. Among the companies awarded concessions were Centamin (LSE: CEY), B2Gold (TSX: BTO), Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX), Lotus Gold, Red Sea Resources and AKH Gold.
Although Egypt has a long history of gold-mining, there is only one commercial gold mine, Centamin’s Sukari, which generates up to $900 million a year to the country’s gross domestic product.
This round of bids accounted for 29% of the blocks on offer. Egypt is targeting $1 billion in investment in the mining sector and has opened up a second bid round for gold and mineral exploration.
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Guinea Approves Port for Simandou
Guinea’s government has approved a consortium’s plan to build a railroad to a deep water port to ship ore from the massive Simandou iron ore project.
The consortium, which includes Singapore’s Winning Shipping, Guinean mining logistics firm United Mining Supply, Chinese aluminum producer Shandong Weiqiao and Guinea’s government.
The consortium has committed to build a 650-kilometre railway and a deep water port and intends to bring into production Simandou Block 1 and 2 into production by 2025. Total cost of the rail-port project stands at $16 billion, up from an initial quote of $14 billion.
In 2008, one of Guinea’s former dictators stripped Rio Tinto’s rights over two of the four blocks the deposit had been divided on and offered them to Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s BSG Resources.
At two billion tonnes of iron ore with some of the highest grades in the industry, Simandou is one of the world’s biggest and richest reserves of iron ore.
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Platinum Market to Reach 1 Million Ounce Shortfall in 2020
According to the World Platinum Investment Council’s research, they are expecting a large supply deficit beginning in 2020 and going into 2021.
In its latest third-quarter market report, the WPIC said that platinum is facing a supply deficit of more than one million ounces this year as mine supply cannot keep up with growing demand. Going forward into 2021, the platinum market could face a supply deficit of more than 200,000 ounces
The report said that the total platinum supply in the third quarter of 2020 was down by 5% from the third quarter of 2019. This decline is not as drastic as the 36% drop in the second quarter of 2020.
Total mine supply grew by 4% in the third quarter, compared to 2019. However according to WPIC, mine supply is expected to fall 21% this year.
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Volkswagen Joins Cobalt Group Aiding Artisanal miners, Congo
Volkswagen has joined the “Cobalt for Development” group to help improve artisanal cobalt mining conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The pilot project hopes to strengthen legal compliance and ameliorate health and safety conditions as well as social conditions in the cobalt-rich districts of the DRC.
Germany’s development agency, GIZ, is implementing the project with financing from BASF, BMW Group, Google, Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI and Volkswagen.
The group is also backed by Glencore Plc and major Chinese cobalt refiner Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.
Almost three-quarters of the world’s cobalt comes from the Congo and demand is forecast to grow into the future.
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Bluestone Drills 1,380 g/t Gold and 2,194 g/t Silver over 1.2 meters at Cerro Blanco, Guatemala
Lundin-led Bluestone Resources (TSXV: BSR) (OTCQB: BBSRF) has reported its latest round of drilling results from the South Zone of its Cerro Blanco gold project.
These results confirm the continuity and high grade of the epithermal vein style mineralization, including several intercepts and the highest-ever gold assay received in the project's history of 1,380 g/t Au over 1.2 meters, which beats the previous highest assay of 674.8 g/t Au and 2,863 g/t Ag over 1.3 meters.
The focus of the drill program is to improve the definition of key veins in parallel to expanding the high-grade mineralization for known veins outside of the current resource.
The work is expected to build on the infill drill program completed in the North Zone of the deposit in 2019 which resulted in an updated Mineral Resource estimate of 1.41 million ounces of gold averaging 10.3 g/t in Measured and Indicated categories
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