New African Gold Miner

The 2000s gold bull has brought a lot of attention to West Africa. This attention has not always translated to success given the unstable geopolitical environment in this part of the world. But the diligent miners able to endure and overcome the challenges have been rewarded with some major discoveries that have been developed into profitable gold mines.
One country really thriving is Ghana. On the geopolitical front there’s probably no safer country in Africa with its government acting under a stable long-standing constitutional democracy and its tax and mining laws fairly well-legislated. And on the geological front there’s definitely no rival, with Ghana host to four massiveunderexplored gold-rich greenstone belts.
Ghana’s gold-mining success has resulted in a 35% increase in output over the last decade. It has grown to become Africa’s second-largest gold producer, and the 10th largest in the world. And when Asanko Gold’s flagship mine commissions in 2016, this country will see another huge boost in production.
The Asanko Gold we see today is a new-look company via its early-2014 acquisition of PMI Gold. Old Asanko (formerly Keegan Resources) and PMI were both early movers into West Africa. And their marriage is a match made in heaven given their outstanding logistical and corporate synergies.
This deal ended up bringing together the former Esaase and Obotan projects to form the newly-dubbed Asanko Gold Mine (AGM). AGM is located in the emerging Asankrangwa gold belt, just to the west of the better-known Ashanti gold belt where Newmont, AngloGold, and Goldfields operate several prolific gold mines. And its complex of deposits combine to make it one of the most robust gold projects in Ghana.
Obotan and Esaase are located about 30km apart. And both projects are known to have long histories of smaller-scale artisanal mining. This mining was primarily alluvial in nature, though it pointed towards an accessible hard-rock source. And the larger mining companies indeed found this source when they applied modern exploration techniques.

This post was published at ZEAL LLC on December 26, 2014.