LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Hummingbird Resources announced a ramp-up update from its Yanfolila Gold Mine in Mali on Monday, with the mine having commenced gold production in December.
The AIM-traded firm said the completion of plant construction and ore commissioning in 2017 was achieved within both the planned 18-month schedule and the $88.5m budgeted capital cost.

Since first gold was poured on 19 December, the performance of the plant had steadily improved month by month, the board explained.

In the first 14 days of March, the plant operated at an average of 95% of design throughput, and consistently achieved a gold recovery rate of approximately 96%, which was in excess of design specification.

Total gold recovered to 14 March was 16,804 ounces, of which 11,958 ounces had been poured and 4,846 ounces were currently within circuit inventory.

During the initial ore commissioning phase, the plant was processing ore from lower-grade stockpiles in order to ensure plant performance and gold recovery were satisfactory, before increasing the head grade.

Over the past two months, Hummingbird said the amount of high grade ore fed into the mill blend had been steadily increased, and the plant was now running close to nameplate capacity, with recoveries remaining consistently above design.

Higher-grade ore was continuing to be increasingly introduced to the plant.

"We are delighted that the plant has performed so well and that the work carried out by our highly experienced team and contractors has so far been rewarded in ramp-up operations with 96% recoveries, over 3g/t head grade and a steady increase in plant throughput towards design," said Hummingbird CEO Dan Betts.

"This is an impressive achievement in such a short space of time."

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