LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - West Africa-focussed gold company Cora Gold updated the market on its definitive feasibility study for the Sanankoro gold project in southern Mali on Monday, reporting that the key consultants and contractors appointed in September had now completed their site visits.
The AIM-traded firm said hydrogeological and geotechnical drilling programmes, as well as geotechnical test pits, had started on site and were ongoing, adding that the site lay-out had been developed to include the process plant and tailings storage facility locations.

Geophysics work on the tailing storage facility were complete, and all metallurgical test work samples had arrived at the ALS Perth laboratory in Australia, and composited ahead of a metallurgical test work programme due to be completed during the first quarter of 2022.

All waste rock samples had been sent to Waterlabs in South Africa, meanwhile, for geochemical analysis.

Process flow diagrams and process design bases had been approved by the company, and enquiry documents had been sent out to market for the pricing of various aspects of the project.

The company said the environmental and social impact assessment was on track for completion in the first half of 2022, while the definitive feasibility study was due to be completed by the end of the first half of next year.

"We are making excellent progress in advancing the definitive feasibility study at Sanankoro, which when completed, will unlock the $25m Lionhead Capital funding to support the construction of the mine," said chief executive officer Bert Monro.

"The recently-updated mineral resource estimate exceeded our expectations and set up strong foundations for the mining study to be completed on, with a high conversion to Indicated oxide material.

"Following the appointment of our consultants and contractors a few months ago, many other workstreams have been successfully advanced with test work samples already in the lab for analysis, geophysics work completed, and drilling programmes underway, amongst many other key steps achieved."

Monro said that, with various milestones already completed in the definitive feasibility study process, the next stage in Sanankoro's development of completing the environmental and social impact assessment was "well on track" to be finalised in the first half of 2022.

"I look forward to giving further updates as we continue to rapidly progress with our plans."

At 1356 GMT, shares in Cora Gold were down 3.55% at 9.5p.

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