Firefinch Limited’s (ASX: FFX) subsidiary Birimian Gold Mali SARL has been granted a Permis d’Exploitation, or mining licence, covering the Finkola exploration licence in Mali.
The process to transfer the mining licence to a single purpose Malian company, as required by Malian legislation, will now commence.
The company will initially be a 100% owned subsidiary of Firefinch and will be a separate standalone company to Morila. However, the State of Mali has a right to receive a 10% free carried interest in the company, with an option to purchase an additional 10% at fair market value.
When formed, the company will enter into arms-length commercial agreements with Morila for Morila to operate and manage the mining and haulage activities at Beledjo and process the mined ore on its behalf through to production of doré.
The Finkola licence is located 23 kilometres north-west of Firefinch’s Morila Gold Mine and contains the Beledjo-Koting gold deposit as well as the K2, K3 and other prospects.
The licence area is contiguous with the Morila mining licence. Beledjo contains Probable Ore Reserves of 20,000 ounces of gold (0.63 million tonnes at 0.98g/t gold) within an Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 30,000 ounces of gold (0.93 million tonnes at 1.01g/t),
The grant of the mining licence allows Firefinch to add Beledjo into the mining schedule and commence preliminary site works. A surface grade control programme was recently completed and will be used to update the resource model prior to mining.
Importantly there has been no previous mining at Beledjo, meaning substantial quantities of oxide ore will become available for blending with fresh ore from the Morila Super Pit.
“The grant of the Permis d’Exploitation for Finkola is another important step in ramping up production at Morila,” Firefinch Managing Director, Dr Michael Anderson, said,
“Beledjo gives us another ore source and importantly provides oxide ore for blending with fresh ore from the Morila Super Pit.” The Permis d’Exploitation has been granted for a period of twelve (12) years with renewals possible for ten years. The mining licence also provides a development pipeline for other prospects within the Finkola licence.”
Recent drilling by Firefinch has successfully delineated mineralisation at the K2 and K3 Prospects, the most advanced prospects after Beledjo. Both prospects are unmined with mineralisation present in oxide and fresh rock.
Further drilling is planned at both these prospects for 2022 with the aim to define Mineral Resources and assess the potential for these to contribute to future mill feed. Other prospects within the licence will be advanced with surface geochemistry and aircore drilling.
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