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18 E&MJ; • JULY 2014 www.e-mj.com REGIONAL NEWS - AFRICA Tiger Resources Starts Copper Cathode Production at Kipoi Tiger Resources started copper cathode pro- duction at its 60% owned Kipoi copper pro- ject in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on May 25. The company was expect- ing the solvent extraction/electro-winning (SX/EW) plant to reach production capacity within three months and to produce 25,000 metric tons (mt) of copper cathode in its first full 12 months of operation. Tiger Resources is an Australian com- pany headquartered in West Perth, Western Australia. DRC's state-controlled mining company, Gécamines, holds the remaining 40% interest in the Kipoi project. The Kipoi project is located 75 km north- west of Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga province, in the central part of the Katanga copper belt. The Kipoi mining license covers an area of 55 km 2 and contains a 12-km- long, extensively copper-cobalt mineralized segment of Upper Roan sediments. The project hosts five known copper deposits: Kipoi Central, Kipoi North, Kileba, Judeira and Kaminafitwe. As of December 2013, mineral resources stood at 934,000 mt of contained copper. The Kipoi SX/EW plant represents stage 2 of Kipoi development. Stage 1 is process- ing a high-grade zone of copper mineraliza- tion at Kipoi Central through a heavy-media separation plant and is expected to produce a total of 132,000 mt of copper in concen- trate over a 42-month operating life. Construction of the stage 2 SX/EW plant began in January 2013. The stage 2 feasibility study confirmed the project as a low-cost, high-margin operation capable of producing 538,000 mt of copper cathode over 11 years, processing ore reserves from the Kipoi Central, Kileba, and Kipoi North deposits and reject floats, slimes, and medium-grade ore stockpiles from the stage 1 heavy-media separation operation. Tiger anticipates that ore from the Judeira and other deposits within the Kipoi project area, as well as the Lupoto project 10 km south of the Kipoi project area, will also be processed during the stage 2 oper- ations, providing additional returns and increasing the mineral resources available as feedstock to the stage 2 SX/EW plant. The Lupoto project has a resource of 14.7 million mt grading 1.4% copper for 200,000 mt of contained copper. B2Gold Buys Papillon Resources for $570 Million B2Gold and Papillon Resources announced an agreement in early June whereby B2Gold will acquire Papillon in an all-share transaction that values Papillon at about $570 million. Papillon is developing the Fekola gold project in southwest Mali, where a 2013 pre-feasibility study consid- ered a project that would deliver more than 300,000 oz/y of gold at low operating costs over a nine-year mine life. In late March, Papillon appointed Lycopodium Minerals as lead engineer for the definitive feasibili- ty study for the project. Papillon is an Australian junior compa- ny headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. The Fekola pre-feasibility study assumed an ore processing rate of 4 mil- lion mt/y at a plant feed grade of 2.73 g/mt gold and a mining cut-off grade of 1.1 g/mt gold from measured and indicat- ed resources totaling 44 million mt. A total of 2.8 million oz of gold would be recovered over a nine-year mine life at an average recovery of 92.7%. Up-front capital costs for Fekola were estimated at $292 million. Life-of-mine all-in sustaining cash costs, including cor- porate overheads, sustaining capital, explo- ration expenditure, and royalties, were esti- mated at about $725/oz. B2Gold is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and has three producing gold mines: La Libertad and Limon in Nicaragua and Masbate in the Philippines. Collectively, the B2Gold mines produced 366,000 oz of gold in 2013 at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,064/oz. B2Gold expects its production to increase to about 550,000 oz/y by 2015, when its low-cost Otjikoto mine in Namibia is up and running. The B2Gold-Papillon agreement will be implemented by way of a Scheme of Arrangement under the Australian Corpora- tions Act 2001. Upon completion of the Scheme, existing B2Gold shareholders and former Papillon shareholders will own approximately 74% and 26%, respectively, of the combined company. Based on current assumptions, includ- ing successful completion of its acquisition of Papillon, B2Gold expects to be produc- ing more than 900,000 oz/y of gold from five operating mines by 2017. In other news from B2Gold, the compa- ny reported that construction of its 90% owned Otjikoto open-pit gold mine in Namibia remains on schedule for a produc- tion start in late 2014. The mine is expect- ed to produce an average of about 141,000 oz/y of gold during its first five years of oper- ation. Total construction and development costs remain in line with feasibility study projections, including pre-development costs of $244 million and deferred strip- ping estimates of $33 million. Copper cathode stripping machine at Tiger Resources' Kipoi project in DRC. (Continued on p. 27) EMJ_pg04-27_EMJ_pg04-27 7/2/14 1:50 PM Page 18