Gold Fields Ghana Ltd says it remains committed to its core goal of optimising operations including flagship projects for the benefit of the communities, General Manager, Tarkwa Mine, Stephen Osei -Bempah, has said.
He stressed, “For us in Tarkwa Mine, we want to be a preferred gold mining company, we want to deliver superior value for all our stakeholders including you the media, going forward. We are here to create enduring value beyond mining, that’s our vision”.
Mr Osei-Bempah gave the assurance on Wednesday at a press soiree to outline the vision of Gold Fields and future operations.
Initially, he said the mine operated with a small plant with a capacity of 4.2 million tonnes per annum, with heap leach alongside, but as the pits went deeper, and with low grade, the operations became less profitable.
He said, “We have managed to improve the plant from 4.2 million tonnes per annum to currently running at a rate of 14 million tonnes per annum. That’s our vision, we’re also proud of our recovery, every gold bearing material that we put through the process plant, we are able to recover 97 per cent of it. And that is one of its kind in the world.
“Our reserve grade is reserve 0.93 grammes per tonne. Not all companies could process this at profit and it’s all on the back of the people and the skill set and we are able to operate efficiently and to explore our ore. We are the biggest mining company in Ghana and our plant is one of the biggest in Africa.”
Safety performance, Mr Osei-Bempah said, was gradually trending to zero due to some interventions, including fatigue monitoring system which has helped reduce injuries, adding that, “we want to work for the whole year without any injury and achieving that is what we strive for”.
In 2021, he reported that out of $605 million spent on materials, only 43 million dollars was spent from outside this country and that was a significant contribution to the local economy.
He said one challenge was that, for every tonne of gold bearing material that was mined, there was an equivalent of 5.5 waste and that got the pits deeper, making it costly.
Mr Osei-Bempah said the company needed to improve efficiency to exploit the low grades to make profit.
“I can tell you for sure that with actions that we’ve taken, if nothing changes, we have life up to 2035. We also have potential to extend the life provided, we can improve on our costs. So apart from the low grade nature, the high strip ratio of our ore body.
“We have a reserve of 5.8 million ounces. We have resource of 9.7 million ounces, is what we can exploit at profit now. Resource is what is there, we know that gold, but we cannot mine it at profit. So if you look at it, if you have this resource, and you’re able to exploit only 5.8 million, you have almost 4 million ounces sitting there which is there for takes,” he stated.
Future infrastructure expansion projects are part of the vision to be a leader in the industry, the General Manager revealed.
FROM CLEMENT ADZEI BOYE, TARKWA
